Morgantown, West Virginia – After the West Virginia Mountaineers (11-1) defeated the Youngstown State Penguins, former Bob Huggins’ assistant Jerrod Calhoun said that his mentor deserves a statue outside of the WVU Coliseum.
“He’s the master of it. That’s why he should be in the Hall of Fame, that’s why he should have a statue outside of the coliseum,” Calhoun said in his postgame conference. “They’ve got the Jerry (West) statue and the Hot Rod (Hundley) statue, so let’s let Huggs enjoy it. Get that statue up. This guy is an obvious Hall of Famer and he should definitely have a statue here soon. I’m shocked it’s not already out there.”
Huggins, who now has 911 career wins, has been overlooked by the Basketball Hall of Fame multiple times despite his accomplishments, but this would be a simple, obvious thing for West Virginia University to do to honor their legendary head coach.
West Virginia University has every opportunity in the world to honor and recognize Bob Huggins in any way that they wish. In fact, they could retire his number, put a statue of him up outside of the Coliseum, name a prominent road near the basketball facilities after him, but the most obvious way to honor him would be to name the basketball court “The Bob Huggins Court” at the WVU Coliseum.
Huggins is the most important figure in West Virginia basketball’s modern history, and no one other than Jerry West, who has a statue outside of the Coliseum, has done more for the basketball program than him.
Waiting for Huggins’ retirement to honor him would be a mistake; rather, he should be made aware of how respected and appreciated he is while still coaching, and with his questionable health, it’s impossible to know how long Huggins will be with us.
A simple, relatively affordable gesture like this would mean so much and West Virginia University should absolutely move forward with making this happen immediately.
What exactly is West Virginia’s Director of Athletics Shane Lyons waiting on?
