Published: April 06, 2007 11:39 pm         

The Roman Empire, Greece and Bob Huggins

MORGANTOWN — The Roman Empire, the Olympiad in Greece and the Bob Huggins Era at West Virginia.

All three cultures collided Friday at the press conference announcing Huggins — the successful if not controversial coach — as West Virginia’s next basketball coach.

“You look at any great civilization, athletes and athletics have been important,” Huggins said. “That’s why they built that great stadium (the Colosseum) in Rome. The Greeks built statues for guys who could run and throw the furthest.

“For whatever reason, human beings have this tremendous fascination with guys who are athletic.”

Huggins is betting that West Virginia, fortified by typically outstanding athletic Huggins basketball recruits, will be that next great civilization, at least where college basketball is concerned.

“We’re going to win, and we’re going to win big,” Huggins announced to mass applause from the 1,500 or so fans who came out for the event. West Virginia already has a statue erected to its basketball royalty, Jerry West.

Huggins recalled growing up, sitting on his grandfather’s knee, listening to Mountaineer basketball games — West, Hot Rod Hundley and the rest — on the radio.

“He had built this place for me to play basketball in the garage,” Huggins said. “So he’d move the car out and I’d go shoot after games. I’d come out black, covered with coal dust, and my grandmother would get mad and say, ‘Don’t do that again.’”

Huggins said he hoped to coach better than he played at WVU — though he was a team captain in 1977.

He recalled the time Digger Phelps and Notre Dame came into Morgantown — the year before the Irish would go to the Final Four in 1978. He and Welch native Maurice Robinson came through and watched the Irish work out.

Phelps sauntered over and said, “We’re gonna whip you tomorrow, boy.”

“We didn’t say anything,” Huggins said. “We left and when I came back the next day, an hour-and-a-half before the game, the place was half full. The students had knocked the doors down. We played really well. We’re up 16, 17 with about a minute to go and I remember Maurice walked over to Digger and said, ‘We beat your a-- today, boy.’ I thought that was pretty good.”

It was the iconic West, whose son Jonnie is a member of the WVU team, who played a key role in Huggins’ getting the WVU job after John Beilein bolted for Michigan Tuesday.

“It’s hard to explain what it’s like to be a West Virginian, to go to school here and, on top of that, play basketball here,” Huggins said. “It’s a great fraternity. Jerry’s been great to me.”

He recalled the time he was standing at the Final Four early in his coaching career.

“This guy with long arms puts his arm around me and I turn around and I’m stunned, it’s Jerry,” Huggins said. “He’s one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. All these people are crowding around and he said, here’s my ticket number, this is where I’m sitting.”

From that time, West, the president of the Memphis Grizzlies, has counseled Huggins on a variety of basketball issues, including potential NBA jobs. Huggins’ hiring offers a bunch of potential great Big East coaching matchups, with Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun, Louisville’s Rick Pitino, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, and, almost certainly, Cincinnati, his former employer.

Huggins wasn’t sure who the best rivalry would be.

“People used to ask me how I’d fare against coach (Bobby) Knight,” the new WVU coach said. “I said, ‘I’d kill him. I’m a lot younger and I was a better player then he was.’”

It was Knight who taught Huggins a valuable lesson early in his career, beating the Bearcats at home in 1992.

Knight told Huggins that it really wasn’t fair to Huggins’ team. See, Knight’s team was used to the pressure of being everybody’s No. 1 game.

“And that’s where we want to get to,” Huggins said. “We want to get to where we really don’t care and they really care about us.”

If he does, they just might erect a new statue in front of the aptly named Coliseum.