The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

College Sports

March 18, 2010

Coach Huggins’ father happy about Mountaineers’ success

By Mickey Furfari For The Register-Herald

MORGANTOWN — No one could be happier about West Virginia University men’s basketball success than Charlie Huggins of New Philadelphia, Ohio.

He happens to be a retired high school basketball coach and the father of Bob Huggins, WVU’s third-year head coach.

“We were really excited for him when the Mountaineers won the Big East championship,” the elder Huggins said from his home earlier in the week. 

“No, I wasn’t surprised. It looked like they have added a little more desire to really play good defense than they have in the past. Yes, defense was something we stressed when I was coaching.”

Huggins coached basketball 27 years and has been retired since 1983. His teams at Indian Valley South High won at least two Ohio state championships.

One was in 1967 and his team won close contests in back-to-back fashion for the state title. “The ball was in the air when time ran out,” he recalled.

That came to mind as Huggins watched on TV as West Virginia won three games by a combined total of just seven points last weekend in Madison Square Garden for the league title.

Indian Valley South also captured the state championship in 1972 when Bob Huggins, then a senior, led the way in a perfect 26-0 season. Ohio only had two classifications then.

Charlie Huggins had a very solid program, though. His teams won 51 games in a row at home in 1970, 1971, and 1972. So his son had a hand in that record winning streak.

West Virginia heads into the NCAA Tournament with a 27-6 record, Top 10 national ranking, and a No. 2 seed. Such success doesn’t surprise Charlie Huggins, though.

“Nothing Bob does surprises me,” he said. “We’re certainly happy for him. I won’t say ‘proud’ because we sort of maintain a sense of humility.”

The Morgantown native doesn’t even want to reveal his coaching success. Asked how many victories he had during his career, he said “I don’t pay too much attention to that… but I’d say it was 400 and some.”

He admittedly has been impressed with Da’Sean Butler, WVU’s most outstanding player. The senior superstar from Newark, N.J., has scored more than 2,000 career points to rank third behind legends Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley.

“His strong point is that he is good on both ends of the floor,” Huggins noted. “He certainly does a lot for this team. Butler is accustomed to pressure. That’s one reason they win.”

Huggins, now 76, attended 13 of the 14 WVU home games this season. Now he’s ready to follow the Mountaineers in their pursuit of more success on the NCAA Tournament trail.

The elder Huggins has been retired since 1983. He is a graduate of Morgantown High. He attended WVU a year, then finished his playing career at Alderson-Broaddus College.

As an All-Stater at MHS, Charlie made 18 consecutive free throws in the state tournament in the early 1950s. That might well still be in the record books.

He thinks a player who misses a foul shot really doesn’t have the right techniques. He didn’t say whether he passed that thought on to the Mountaineer mentor.

Text Only
College Sports
  • Six Concord baseball players selected for honors

    Six Concord University baseballplayers were recently honored with All-Atlantic Region accolades by either the American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) or the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association (NCBWA).

    May 23, 2013

  • WVU baseball changes up pitching lineup for Big 12 Championship

    Randy Mazey’s attention has been on everything but baseball in recent days, as the West Virginia University coach has been out in front of his team’s effort to help the tornado victims in Oklahoma, where his team has been this week preparing for the Big 12 Baseball Championships, which begin today at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, Okla.

    May 22, 2013

  • 1MUSGRAVE1.jpg Musgrave, WVU teammates see tornado devastation up close

    West Virginia University pitcher Harrison Musgrave has spent his entire life in the hills of West Virginia. He didn’t know what a tornado siren was — let alone the damage that can be done by swirling winds.
    “I didn’t even know that they were going off,” Musgrave said. “I didn’t even know that they had sirens. I know I feel like a total idiot, but I heard them go off and I just thought it was an alarm going off.”

    May 22, 2013 1 Photo 6 Stories

  • WVU’s Musgrave wins Pitcher of the Year honors

    Six months ago, West Virginia University sophomore left-hander Harrison Musgrave was questioning his future with the WVU baseball program and first-year head coach Randy Mazey.

    May 21, 2013

  • Big 12 shifts tourney format

    The Big 12 Conference will still play the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship this week at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark in Oklahoma City, Okla., but in the wake of the devastating storm that blew through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore on Monday, there will be some major changes to the format.

    May 21, 2013

  • WVU baseball team helps tornado victims

    West Virginia University head baseball coach Randy Mazey was having lunch at an Oklahoma City restaurant Monday afternoon, keeping a close watch on the television set.
    With every passing minute, the tornado that devastated the Oklahoma town of Moore, was moving closer and closer to his location and its path was being documented by a local television station. At one point, the coach even looked out the window to see if he could see the approaching funnel.

    May 21, 2013

  • College Roundup

    May 21, 2013

  • WVU should reinstate men’s track — not golf

    West Virginia University has not had a men’s golf team since 1982.
    But Oliver Luck, who’s been the school’s athletic director going on three years, reportedly is talking about bringing back that sport “because it’s cheap.”

    May 21, 2013

  • Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship Format Changed

    In the wake of this week’s devastating storm in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, the Big 12 Conference is postponing the start of the 2013 Phillips 66 Big 12 Baseball Championship. No. 3 seeded WVU scheduled to take on Kansas at 4 p.m. (Central) on Thursday.

    May 21, 2013

  • Misled West Virginia students deprived of Big 12 baseball games

    It now appears to be a fact that West Virginia University athletic officials misled students and the general public in not playing any Big 12 Conference baseball games at Hawley Field in Morgantown this season.

    May 21, 2013