For decades, snarling old fart Bob Huggins has been a tolerated, if not respected college basketball figure with a surly personality who has boasted about his love of the socially acceptable F-word before. Since a drunk driving arrest in 2004 led to his demise as Cincinnati’s head coach, Huggins’ issues have been limited to the sideline. The head coach at West Virginia has kept his nose mostly clean for nearly two decades, however, that streak and his job should be in peril once his insensitive use of the other f-word to describe Xavier fans, matriculates through West Virginia University’s athletic department.
During an appearance on 700 WLW’s Bill Cunningham Show Monday morning, Huggins either forgot he was on their air, was too stupid to care what he was saying, or purposely slapped a suicide vest on his career by eschewing common decency while discussing his past experience with Xavier fans throwing rubber penis’ on the court. That’s when things went off the rails.
Amid all the guffawing, Huggins briefly let his guard down and let the bigotry fly. In response to Cunningham crudely asking if it was thrown on “transgender night,” Huggins inexplicably blamed it on “Catholic f–s.”
A normal person would have moved off the topic. Instead, Huggins torpedoed his way into a scandal of his own making.
“It was a Crosstown Shootout, yea, no, what it was, was all those f–s, those Catholic f–s I think, Huggins remarked with no conscience.”
Cunningham: “All right.”
Huggins: “They were envious they didn’t have one.”
Following Huggins’ use of the slur, there was a brief moment of nervous laughter. The hosts quickly attempted to switch topics, but the damage was done. Huggins continued reminiscing as if nothing happened, but the damage has been done. The winningest active coach in D-I basketball may have just hammered the nail in his own career for a cheap laugh. Hopefully, it was worth it for him.
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