West Virginia College mentioned it’s reviewing and can later deal with homophobic feedback made by its males’s basketball coach, Corridor of Famer Bob Huggins, on Monday throughout a reside radio interview.
Showing on Cincinnati station 700WLW’s “Invoice Cunningham Present,” Huggins mentioned his 16-season tenure on the College of Cincinnati and the varsity’s intracity rivalry with Xavier College. Recalling a Crosstown Shootout recreation between the colleges, he twice referred to as Xavier followers a homophobic slur, saying they “throw rubber penises on the ground after which say they did not do it.”
In a press release, West Virginia mentioned Huggins’ feedback had been “insensitive, hurtful” and didn’t signify its values. The varsity “doesn’t condone using such language and takes such actions very critically. The state of affairs is being investigated and might be addressed by the college and its athletics division.
Requested whether or not Huggins, 69, can be allowed to proceed recruiting and dealing through the evaluate, a spokesman for the boys’s basketball staff cited the college’s assertion. Huggins didn’t reply to a textual content message asking if he had been disciplined by the college.
The summer time recruiting season reaches its peak in July. School coaches can host prospects for official and unofficial visits till Could 18 after which once more beginning Could 27. Coaches cannot go on the recruiting path once more till mid June.
Huggins issued an apology earlier than the college launched its assertion, saying he “completely accepts” any penalties for his feedback.
“Through the dialog, I used a very insensitive and offensive phrase for no purpose — and I am not attempting to make it up,” Huggins mentioned in a press release. “I supply my condolences to the people I damage, in addition to the Xavier College group, the College of Cincinnati and West Virginia College.”
He didn’t make a scheduled look at a West Virginia fund-raising occasion in Wheeling, W.Va., Monday evening; his longtime assistant, Ron Everhart, confirmed up as an alternative.
“He has a battle and won’t be able to attend tonight,” West Virginia’s athletic director, Wren Baker, informed native reporters.
Huggins has coached at West Virginia since 2007. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Corridor of Fame in 2022 and is one in every of solely six males’s coaches to amass 900 profession wins in Division I. A West Virginia alumnus, Huggins guided this system to the Remaining 4 in 2010, a feat the staff had not achieved because the Nineteen Fifties.
