MORGANTOWN — With 900 wins in his pocket, Bob Huggins has reached the point of his career where each additional victory seemingly only adds to history.
The WVU men’s basketball head coach will surpass Bob Knight and the recently retired Roy Williams this season, perhaps even Jim Calhoun.
As his total builds, Huggins now finds himself answering the constant questions about time, as in how much longer will he coach? Will he stick around long enough to reach 1,000?
Those were the questions asked of him earlier this week, while attending a fundraiser for his mother’s cancer endowment fund in Cincinnati.
“I don’t really look at those things,” Huggins told The Enquirer. “I keep getting, ‘Are you going to get 1,000 wins?’ Or are you going to do this or do that? I don’t really care about that stuff.”
According to Huggins’ contract extension he signed in 2017, he could enter emeritus status after this season, meaning stepping down as head coach and being employed as a fundraiser for WVU.
Huggins does have the option of deferring emeritus status and remaining the Mountaineers’ head coach through the 2026-27 season, as long as he and WVU athletic director Shane Lyons reach a mutual agreement each year beyond next season.
The thought of Bob Huggins, fundraiser emeritus, isn’t exactly a comfortable fit for the coach at the moment.
“As long as I feel like I can do it the right way and I can contribute, I’m going to keep going,” Huggins said.
He will be 68 by the start of next season, still three years younger than Williams, who retired in April, and seven years younger than Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who announced he will be retiring at the end of this season.
And it will be a season amidst an ever-changing face of college athletics, including athletes coming and going through the transfer portal, and whatever changes lie in store with Name, Image and Likeness laws passed throughout the country.
At WVU, Huggins is still awaiting word from Deuce McBride and Sean McNeil on their decisions on whether or not to keep their names in the 2021 NBA Draft.
McBride has been invited to the NBA Combine, which begins Monday in Chicago.
All-Big 12 forward Derek Culver has already decided to forfeit his remaining eligibility and stay in the draft and the Mountaineers will welcome three graduate transfers signed out of the portal this year to play out their final seasons of eligibility at WVU.
Huggins is not oblivious to how college athletics is changing, but it’s the core element of being in a position of helping young men realize their goals that keeps his desires to coach going.
“I care about doing the best job that I can possibly do, giving them (the players) the best experience that they can possibly have,” Huggins said. “The joy of it is, like a father, watching them go out into the world and do the things that they do and how well they do those things. That’s what I care about. I care so much more about them than I do any record or accolade.”
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