Bob Huggins’s Daughter Blasts WVU President for Handling of Arrest
Days after Bob Huggins resigned from his position as basketball coach at West Virginia, his daughter, Jacque Huggins, took to social media to blast university president E. Gordon Gee and the school’s board of governors for how they handled the aftermath of Huggins’s recent DUI arrest.
The 69-year-old coach resigned on Saturday, a day after being arrested in Pittsburgh for suspicion of DUI. His car was blocking traffic with a “flat and shredded tire,” and he failed multiple sobriety tests. This was Huggins’s second DUI arrest, as he previously was charged in June 2004 while coaching at Cincinnati.
In her Facebook post on Tuesday, Jacque Huggins decried Gee for the “classless” way he and the board responded to her father’s arrest, calling them “cowards, the backstabbers and most of all hypocrites.”
“Throwing stones at glass houses is also not how to represent such a great University,” Jacque wrote. “Treating someone like they don’t matter after they have given their whole heart and soul to your University? You could have helped, but chose to turn your backs. Not only on him, on the guys, the staff, the boosters. Everyone.”
Huggins’s arrest came nearly six weeks after he used an anti-LGBTQ slur as a guest on the Bill Cunningham Show on WLW-AM in Cincinnati, calling Xavier fans “Catholic f---.” He received a three-game suspension and salary reduction for his actions, later issuing an apology in which he said he felt “ashamed and embarrassed and heartbroken for those I have hurt.”
In her Facebook post, Jacque Huggins said her father was not an alcoholic, rather that he made a “mistake that cost him his job, reputation and his livelihood.” In his statement following his resignation, the veteran coach said he would take time to focus on his health and apologized for his actions.
“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,” Huggins wrote. “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.”
Jacque Huggins’s entire post can be read below.
