Cover Photo: WDTV5 Sports
MORGANTOWN, West Virginia — Former West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins was in attendance as the guest speaker for the 41st Frank Loria Awards honoring the best High School Football in Harrison County.
Huggins, the 3rd winningest head coach in the history or college basketball, spoke at length about various topics, but the clip that surfaced online from the event showed Huggins explaining why he decided to return to West Virginia to be the head coach of the Mountaineers.
“My goal coming back here was very simple: I wanted to win a national championship. I wanted to get a bus. I wanted to put the players in a bus, put the trophy in a bus, and I wanted to go from place to place, stop the bus, get the players out of the bus, take the national championship trophy and let everybody who wanted to, touch it. So they could go on for the rest of their lives, saying, knowing, saying to other people, ‘I got to touch the championship trophy.'”
Huggins has shared this dream of his multiple times in the past, but unfortunately this does not look like it’s going to happen now. In an interview with KDKA yesterday, Huggins said, “I love West Virginia. I love the people and I love the state. I don’t want to leave West Virginia, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to have much of a choice.”
Huggins added that he could come back to West Virginia to coach again “if there was a change in leadership.” Again, that doesn’t seem likely anytime in the near future. Although West Virginia president Gordon Gee will retire in the summer of 2025, current director of athletics Wren Baker will almost certainly be around for many years to come, and him potentially hiring Huggins does not seem to be in the cards.
Huggins has left the door open for a return to coaching if the “right situation” presents itself, but it won’t be at West Virginia and unfortunately this beautiful dream of his will likely never happen.
“My goal coming back here (to West Virginia) was very simple…I wanted to win a National Championship…”- Bob Huggins pic.twitter.com/4XlOeOE4nL
— The Voice of Morgantown (@voicemorgantown) March 19, 2024
