The complex tale of the former UC basketball coach

Editor's note: Enquirer sports columnist Jason Williams is a fill-in host on WLW-AM (700).

Fire Bob Huggins. No, don’t. Suspend him. No, don’t. Reprimand him.

Friends and colleagues blew up my phone Monday evening asking what I thought West Virginia University should do about its boorish basketball coach, who said something really insensitive and stupid on Cincinnati’s top radio station earlier in the day.

As someone who’s known the former University of Cincinnati coach for a long time, I’m torn.

The culture says cancel Huggins. The head says harshly punish him with a long suspension. The heart says forgive him.

You’d hate to see a Hall of Fame career end with the utterance of a three-letter word. Oh, but it’s not just any three-letter word. It’s the worst one, a word no one should think or say, publicly or privately. And we’re talking about an intelligent, 69-year-old man who’s done tens of thousands of interviews and press conferences in his 40-year coaching career.

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Huggins brought it on himself, and so be it if he gets fired. Or maybe he should be suspended. Or maybe he should be suspended and forego his salary for a year.

You see, nothing is easy when it comes to Huggins. He’s a complex guy. He’s also his own worst enemy.

There’s a side of him that screams: “Fire him immediately!”

He’s a egomaniac. He’s a bully. He’s a master manipulator. He’s the kind of guy who’s always talked tough, sometimes said something stupid and then always rallied behind all his sycophantic supporters to somehow turn himself into a martyr.

Well, almost always. Huggins actually apologized for using the same homophobic slur that seems to have permanently cancelled Thom Brennaman’s career. Huggins said he’s “ashamed” and “embarrassed.” He better be damn serious.

Maybe Huggins has made a little progress since 2005, when he was fired by UC in the wake of getting busted for drunk driving. Huggins, who spent 16 great seasons in Cincinnati, remains bitter to this day toward former UC President Nancy Zimpher and the administrators – some of whom are no longer with us – who pushed for Huggins’ firing.

Zimpher did the right thing. She had no choice. Huggins had repeatedly embarrassed the university – from his players regularly landing on the police blotter to his bullying of athletic department underlings to his dumb comments to the cringeworthy video footage of his DUI arrest.

Somehow, though, Huggins twisted the narrative of him being fired to make Zimpher the enemy. There are UC fans who still curse her name, have “WV” stickers on their cars and don’t go to UC games anymore. I guess I should call them former Bearcats fans.

I had a front-row seat to Huggins as the UC basketball beat reporter for the Cincinnati Post from 2001 to 2004.

I watched him verbally dismantle his players in practice. I heard him call players a vile word that rhymes with “hunt.”

Sadly, I knew of him to use the same f-word that he used on 700 WLW. Huggins referred to a fellow beat reporter’s laptop carrying case as a “(bleep) bag.” No idea why. He thought it was funny. No one else did.

It was wrong then.

It’s wrong now.

I listened to the WLW clip a half-dozen times. Here’s where a columnist’s job is tough. You have to make a judgment call. I don’t think Huggins meant it maliciously, but he deserves whatever criticism he's getting.

Frankly, I don’t think Huggins has given much thought about gay people in his entire life. He’s probably not had any good thoughts about them. He’s probably not had any bad thoughts about them. He’s indifferent. He’s oblivious.

That’s what happens when you are so hellbent on winning basketball games for four decades. It has been Huggins’ sole focus since Jimmy Carter was president. Huggins doesn’t understand the real world. He has little perspective on life away from the court.

It explains why Huggins has said stupid things without any thought of the repercussions or who it effects. It also explains why he’s never understood why people get ticked at him for saying stupid things.

Huggins was peeved early one of the seasons I covered him because fans weren’t showing up to UC’s home games, despite the Bearcats’ hot start. I asked him what he thought about the attendance. He proceeded to rip UC fans in an exclusive interview, partly saying: “F--k ‘em.”

You can’t criticize your paying customers. Amid intense backlash from fans, Huggins yelled at me. And I yelled back at him. Because unlike a lot people he’s come across in his coaching career, I was never afraid of him. I’ve never been afraid to criticize him, either.

All that to say, there’s a really good side of Huggins.

He’s given hundreds of young men who grew up in broken homes and poverty a chance. Many of those guys have gone onto NBA riches and successful careers in the private sector. He has unwavering loyalty to his players, past and present. Loyalty is a quality we like in our leaders, and we’re seeing less of it in me-first America. Go read my friend Bill Koch's book, "Huggs." It's chock full of stories from Huggins' former players talking about how much he loves them and cares about them.

Huggins has been a role model for the people of West Virginia, where he was born, and the Appalachian region of eastern Ohio, where he grew up. There aren’t a lot of people who make it big from those poor areas. Huggins built his career on old-fashioned hard work. He worked his way up from little Walsh College to Akron to UC. His career is a statement: You can make it with hard work and determination.

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The complex tale of the former UC basketball coach

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