MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WV News) — Perhaps the measure of Bob Huggins is found not so much in a Hall of Fame career that has spanned more than 40 years and more than 900 wins, more than any major college basketball coaches not named Boeheim and Krzyzewski, but instead in the persona the man seems to take over in any room he walks into, every game he competes in.
We know he is anything but stylish, but when was the last time you saw anyone coaching on the sidelines wearing a coat and tie?
Call that the Huggins effect on style.
He is a giant of a man, hulking on the sidelines, snarling at officials, chastising his own players, but sometimes being caught by the unblinking eye of the television camera smiling while having a conversation with an official or a player.
His shadow is cast over everything when he's involved, be it he is caught up in a feud with another coach as he was with Xavier's Pete Gillen or in a friendship with Frank Martin or Andy Kennedy. Who else holds a charity fish fry and gets Kentucky's John Calipari to come in?
He even has to get fired on his own terms, as he was at Cincinnati, where somehow the president of the school turned in a villain, a move that led to an uprising among the fans and a roast from some of his coaching brethren, most of whom took as many shots at President Nancy Zimpher as they did at him.
As WVU made their way to Cincinnati to face Xavier on Saturday evening, it was an important game for the team but the focus was clearly on the return of Bob Huggins ... to the city where he was kind and into an arena where he battled for his life against the team's arch-rival.
Of course, his aura also makes him a target of opposing teams, especially at Pitt or, from his days coaching at Cincinnati, at their crosstown rival.
Once upon a time, as has been talked about all week, Huggins and Gillen didn't even speak, which really made defeats to him double painful.
This time, though, he was facing a coach who came from much of the same background and for whom he has a fondness and with whom he has a relationship.
On the surface, Xavier coach Sean Miller would not seem to be Huggins' kind of man, for not only was he in his second term coaching at Xavier, but coached and played as a point guard for Pitt.
Miller actually found fame far younger than did Huggins, for he made an appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show when he was in his early teens to display his dexterous ball-handling skills, much as former WVU point guard Jordan McCabe did in his youth.
His dribbling and passing were so good that it earned him a part in the movie "The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh" in 1979 with Julius Irving.
Miller and Huggins are joined at the hip, though. Both are sons of basketball coaches from the same area, Huggins being born in Morgantown and raised in eastern Ohio, Miller a prodigy as a guard in Beaver County outside Pittsburgh.
Both were guards, Huggins at WVU and Miller at Penn, emerging not only as the point guard but the team leader as a true freshman on teams that included Charles Smith and Jerome Lane.
"I've known Sean since he was a kid," Huggins said, beginning another of those stories he has for every occasion. "His father and my father went to Ed McCluskey's basketball camp in Erie, Pennsylvania. At first, I was the gopher. I was the guy who ran around and picked up all the balls and counted all the balls and made sure the balls got back on the rack.
"I got old and Sean came in and he was the little fella who got to chase the balls around and took over the routine with the ball rack and making sure he had all the balls accounted for. He was my junior ball boy."
This was truly starting at the bottom, but they've come a long way.
Huggins played only three years at WVU, 84 games, while Miller played 128 games in four years at Pitt. He averaged 10 points a game to 9.8 for Huggins and had more assists, but, hey, he was on the Johnny Carson show ... and besides, Huggins outrebounded him.
While Huggins started his coaching career at the bottom at Walsh College, Miller started in the big time at Xavier, coaching five years there before jumping to Arizona. where he stayed for 12 years before being fired.
Not to worry, he went back to Xavier last season and now has a healthy 433 wins in his career and a career winning percentage of .729.
And when this one was over, the two met and shared a warm handshake, something that didn't happen in the Huggins-Gillen days.
But now Huggins has to put his own Humpty-Dumpty back together again, and let his players know that he is not going to let this year turn into last year all over again.
"I hoped they learned I'm not going to put the fans of West Virginia through what we went through a year ago," he said. "Some of these guys may have one more chance and then we got to move on. We have to get guys who are going to do what they're asked to do. We're going to get guys who are going to stay in front of people and not have the travesty that happened a year ago.
"The reality is some of them are guys who were guys there last year and ought to know better. We'll clean it up."
