Bob Huggins Fish Fry Raises Over $2 Million for Cancer Research
The 10th annual Bob Huggins Fish Fry was a major success. During Friday's event at Mylan Park Community Center, approximately $2.5 million was raised. Special guest Dave Portnoy of Barstool Sports donated a gracious gift of $500k to the cause. In total, the event has raised close to $17 million since its inception
The idea for the Fish Fry came about during his one-year stint at Kansas State, prior to returning home to West Virginia.
"Everybody does barbecues. I don't want to be like everybody else," Huggins said jokingly. "When I was at K-State, they said you ought to come on down to the fish fry. I'm like what? The fish fry? They had it at a church kind of right around the corner. So I go down there and I mean these guys legitimately went out to farm ponds and caught fish and cleaned them, cooked them, and ate them. So I thought, what a great idea. I thought initially we could catch them all but when you start putting in the number of people we're putting in there? No. Nope, you can't catch that many. Now, we got store bought fish."
The main mission behind the Fish Fry is to raise money for cancer research and to hopefully one day build a cancer hospital in Morgantown.
"I enjoy the heck out of it because when I said we're going to have a Fish Fry, everybody laughed at me. I sincerely believe that we can raise the money to build a cancer hospital and we're going to. We need it in this state in the worst way. Just think, instead of people going to Cleveland Clinic, they go to Morgantown. People from Virginia, instead of driving all the way to Cleveland or driving all the way to Buffalo or driving all the way to Minneapolis, come here. One, I think we need it so bad for our state because of how many people are dying annually with cancer. But I think as much as that, I mean, it's going to help the economy so much. I think it's the right thing to do. And if I can leave this state with anything in a positive way that will remain relevant to helping the people of West Virginia, I certainly want to do that."
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