Where Do Things Stand Between Huggins, WVU?
It's been quite the start to Wren Baker's tenure as athletic director at West Virginia University.
He had to immediately come in and assess the state of the football program under head coach Neal Brown, hire a new women's basketball coach, deal with the two off-the-court situations with men's basketball coach Bob Huggins, prepare for the future retirement of head baseball coach Randy Mazey, and then have a voice in the Big 12s expansion efforts.
Without a doubt, the most difficult item on that long list is the situation that unfolded with Hall of Famer, Bob Huggins. Everyone anticipated that Huggins would be around for a few more years, maybe get to 1,000 wins, and get a warm, memorable send off into retirement.
Once Huggins made eye-popping remarks on a Cincinnati radio station regarding Xavier fans and then followed that up with a DUI arrest in Pittsburgh not long after, it spelled the end of his time as the head coach at WVU.
But it didn't end right then and there. A few weeks after his resignation, he made a statement denying the decision to step down.
"I am employed by WVU pursuant to an Employment Agreement. I never submitted the notice requited under the Employment Agreement to voluntarily resign. I let WVU WVU know that I was seeking rehabilitation. However, WVU was not willing to speak with me about the Pittsburgh event nor to provide me time to obtain counsel to review my Employment Agreement. I met with my players on June 17, 2023 and let them know the truth -- that I did not know what would happen to me, but that if I was not their coach, I was hoping that I would be replaced by a coach that I recommended to WVU. Most importantly, whether I was staying or not, I was encouraging the players to stay at WVU. My players come first and they needed to hear my support for WVU directly from me."
Huggins' attorneys and the university have responded multiple times to one another and have yet to come to a resolution, at least that we know of. Wednesday afternoon, Baker was asked about the situation and if he had any update on it.
"Probably can't say a lot there because there is back-and-forth there between lawyers and I'm not a lawyer, so I don't want to get in trouble with our lawyers. I'll just leave it at this. I have a lot of admiration and respect for coach and what he accomplished here. He and I have never had a bad word. I wish that the transition could have happened differently. My guess is that he does as well. He's a Mountaineer. And sometimes in families there's disagreements and hard feelings and sometimes people get over those and sometimes they don't. My hope is that at some point, we can all look back on this and move past it. But I don't know in terms of an end game, I'm not in control of really either side of that. So, I don't know if there is one or if we're near it, or where we're at on that journey. I'll just say that I appreciate the contributions that he made to the basketball program and that appreciation has not changed as we've went through this."
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