Published: May 03, 2008 01:46 am         

COLUMN: Huggins: ‘Mike and I will be here a long time’

MORGANTOWN — In the midst of the everyday business of lawsuits and scandals at West Virginia University, it didn’t seem to be out of the ordinary that a press conference was hurriedly arranged late on Friday afternoon.

After all, at a school where the football coach jumps to Michigan and then refuses to pay his $4 million buyout, where the governor’s daughter is given an eMBA degree based on grades she didn’t earn in courses she didn’t take, where the university president is being pressured to resign less than a year after taking the job, where a minority assistant football coach charges racism when he isn’t interviewed for the job, it would be unusual to have a day without a press conference.

But even in this atmosphere, this was a stunner.

Bob Huggins, who has had his share of controversies over a coaching career that stretches back to 1980, had agreed to what amounts to a lifetime deal to coach the Mountaineers.

The decision to offer such a contract to Huggins put the finishing touches on the resurrection of Huggins’ career and the public relations makeover of a coach who seemed to be on a course of self-destruction when he lost his job at the University of Cincinnati over the classroom work of his players, their off-court conduct and the off-court conduct of the coach himself and his assistants.

In fact, such a turnaround was so startling that the temptation could not be resisted to ask the following question:

“Can you explain how one university president couldn’t wait to get rid of you and another wants you to stay forever?”

Huggins thought about that briefly, as he always does when a question is put to him, smiled slightly and then said, “We have a much more intelligent president.”

The president who ran him off, of course, was Nancy Zimpher at Cincinnati, a move that put her in the center of a storm at her school that comes close to equaling the one WVU President Mike Garrison now has pouring down on him over the eMBA degree that Heather Bresch was awarded just a couple of months after Garrison landed the job, some say due to his political connections in the governor’s mansion.

His job is far less secure than is Huggins’ and, he admits, even if he does survive there is little chance of anyone offering him a contract that will take him to age 65, as does Huggins’.

Whereas Huggins and Zimpher never seemed to have so much as a friendly conversation after Huggins was arrested for DUI, Huggins and Garrison gave the cameras a great show with a long, warm hug.

Considering the atmosphere at the school, Huggins seemed to be giving Garrison an endorsement for the job he has done.

“I’ve been confident of the job President Garrison has done since the day I got here,” Huggins said when asked if that was the case. “Nothing has happened since then to make me waver. It’s a tough job. He’s been terrific for me to work for.”

Huggins then added, “Mike and I will be here a long time.”

Huggins contract will pay in the neighborhood of $1.5 million a year and has a $4 million buyout clause that remains at that figure for the 11-year length of the contract. The 54-year-old Huggins turns 65 in 2019.

There are some who would say that making age 54 was a miracle for Huggins, who suffered a massive heart attack in Pittsburgh International Airport while on a recruiting trip and had to be shocked back to life.

He had been regarded one of the nation’s best coaches while running the Bearcats, reaching the Final Four once and winning over fierce loyalty among the school’s students and alumni. But the bright lights of the evening always seemed to be calling while the drive to win seemed to cause academics to suffer, and that is what brought him down.

He sat out of basketball a year, returned to Kansas State and revived the Wildcats’ program, then got a second chance to return to his alma mater at WVU and took it, surprising everyone by coaching a John Beilein-recruited team all the way to the Sweet 16 before losing to his one-time Cincinnati nemesis, Xavier.

The only thing he hadn’t done in his first season was sign his WVU contract.

“When you get older,” he said, “things don’t get to be so urgent as they used to be.”

Negotiations picked up again after the season and a couple of days ago he agreed to a short-term deal that paid him only $800,000 a year.

At that point the school suggested a standard contract, one which Garrison assures has no promises that aren’t written into it as Rodriguez claimed he had. This contract ties him to the school as long as he coaches up to 65.

It was almost as it was 20 years ago when Whitey Herzog, then manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, was summoned to the office of octogenarian owner Augie Busch.

Upon arriving, Busch promptly announced, “Whitey, I want to give you a lifetime contract.”

Herzog stared for a moment at the elderly gentleman at the desk, then replied, “My lifetime or yours?”

One wonders in this case if this “lifetime contract” covers Huggins life at the university or Garrison’s.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel at hotmail.com.

     

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