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MORGANTOWN — The tragedy that has been the career of Bob Huggins has come to an end.
This time, we all know, it’s forever.
It shouldn’t be written here on the sports pages of the world, for that in the end it turns out isn’t what it’s all been about.
This one should be written by William Shakespeare for it ends tragically, as we now realize it only could.
He came home, he stressed over and over during the 16 years here, to bring a championship to the people of West Virginia.
It was the place where he was born, where he graduated college.
It was a school with a great basketball history, a sport where the entire state drew pride from Jerry West, who would honor it by going on to become the NBA logo.
It was his dream to bring it that NCAA championship, to take a state so often belittled from the outside, and honor it with a title.
It never happened.
Instead, it ended in shame, with him standing on one leg in a Pittsburgh street, the blue and orange flashing spotlight atop a police cruiser illuminating him as he tried to touch his nose, his words as slurred as the moment, unsure what city, even what state he was in, according to the incident report.
A month or so after he had gone on a Cincinnati radio talk show and let slide — knowingly or not is unimportant — some homophobic slurs which led to his being suspended for three games and his contract rewritten with him taking a million dollar pay hit — he had been stopped for DUI.
He was at a time in his career when he finally could have been enjoying the fruits of his decision to coach basketball like his father. He was the winningest active coach in the college game, he was almost a year into being named a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
He had gotten to the Final Four twice — once in the midst of a career that was highlighted by his years at Cincinnati during a controversial tenure and once at WVU — but could not reach the final, could not add the jewel that would have been the national title that would have forever proved he was among the elite of the elite.
Instead, the Cincinnati run ended with a DUI and the same now can be said of his West Virginia run.
He was described by the arresting officer as “having an alcoholic beverage on his breath, his eyes were glassy and speech was slurred and mumbling.”
It was not the way he pictured going out, yet it was the road he had chosen.
It was a dead-end street he’d driven down before.
The hardest thing in Bob Huggins’ life wasn’t finding ways to beat Jim Boeheim, Bob Knight, Jim Calhoun, Mark Few or Bill Self.
It was winning over his own self-destruction.
And then having to meet with his players and tell them that he had decided to resign.
Decided probably is the wrong word. He was driven to resign.
If only he’d been driven on Friday night.
He told his players, he told his family.
Talk about a soliloquy in a Shakespearean tragedy.
What do you say to a group of players, most of them new to your program, players you had gathered around you to win that elusive championship?
What do you say to your wife and daughters?
That was far harder than preparing a statement for the state that you loved, for the people in it that you also loved but had now let down in the most inglorious of manners.
Today, I have submitted a letter to President Gordon Gee and Vice President and Director of Athletics Wren Baker informing them of my resignation and intention to retire as head men's basketball coach at West Virginia University effective immediately.
My recent actions do not represent the values of the University or the leadership expected in this role. While I have always tried to represent our University with honor, I have let all of you - and myself - down. I am solely responsible for my conduct and sincerely apologize to the University community - particularly to the student-athletes, coaches and staff in our program. I must do better, and I plan to spend the next few months focused on my health and my family so that I can be the person they deserve.
It has been the honor of my professional career to lead the men's basketball program at my alma mater and I take great pride in our accomplishments. But I am most proud of the tremendous young men who chose to spend their formative years with us, and who have gone on to do great things with their lives.
I was born in Morgantown, graduated from West Virginia University and had the pleasure of coaching here for seventeen seasons as an assistant or head coach. It will always be my home, and I will always be a Mountaineer.
Thank you to everyone who has supported our program over the years. It has meant more to me and my family than you could ever know.
Sincerely,
Bob Huggins
West Virginia University will move on. It will name a new coach and it will shake off the residual effects of what has been the final act of the Bob Huggins era.
In the end, it comes up empty. All those great moments in the Big East and the Big 12, the run to the Big East tournament championship, to the NCAA’s Final Four. There were so many memorable players, too many to name, all of them now wondering the meaning of it all.
How many games did he win, you ask?
Doesn’t matter.
Right now they mean very little, as we have seen Bob Huggins spin out of control into history, the end not justifying the means.