Huggins in town

WVU basketball coach speaks at Boy Scouts of America fundraiser

By JIM BUTTA, jbutta@newsandsentinel.com


VIENNA — A packed house at the Grand Pointe Conference Center was subject to a class in basketball coaching 101 Wednesday night.

The guest speaker was first-year West Virginia University men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins, who proceeded to delight the gold and blue clad audience with story after story from his long coaching career.

A career that began with his tenure as a graduate assistant at WVU and blossomed during stays at the University of Cincinnati, where he registered a 399-127 mark, and at Kansas State.

The newest Mountaineer coach was in Vienna on Wednesday, however, for a different reason.

“It’s all about the cause,” Huggins explained. “It’s nothing about the game, it’s all about the cause.”

The cause, in this case, revolved around the Allohak Council of the Boy Scouts of America and its 39th annual Leadership Dinner.

All monies raised from the dinner, and a silent auction involving items ranging from autographed photos of star athletes like Tiger Woods and Brett Favre to 4-wheelers and a motorcycle, help the local council to support Boy Scout troops over a 17-county area in West Virginia and Ohio.

“The Boy Scouts of America that’s what he (Huggins) is here for,” explained Scout Executive Dale Musgrave. “Coaching and scouting have a lot in common when it comes to building character.”

A trait that was consistently demonstrated during Huggins’ 25-minute talk.

And, a talk which 12-year old Zach Mendenhall was interested in hearing.

“For Parkersburg to have somebody, a star, come here, it’s a big experience,” said Mendenhall, who is a sixth-grader at McKinley Elementary School. “This is an exciting moment for me.”

And for every other fan of Mountaineer basketball in the Mid-Ohio Valley.

Not all of the news, however, that came from Huggins was good.

Junior Joe Alexander announced earlier in the day that he was adding his name to the list of juniors opting to enter the upcoming NBA draft.

“He (Alexander) made unbelievable progress,” said the coach. “He’s going to test the waters and we are going to do everything we can to help him.”

Alexander, who led the Mountaineers in scoring with a 16.9 ppg norm and in rebounding (6.4), helped WVU reach the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 for the third time in the last four seasons. West Virginia finished its first season under Huggins with a 26-11 mark and a No. 17 ranking in the final ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll.

The NBA Draft will be held on June 26 at Madison Square Garden.

“People have asked me all season long how hard it was to get these guys to buy into my system,” Huggins explained. “It really wasn’t hard at all.

“From day one they (the players) were terrific. But, then again, fear is a great motivator.”

But, that’s a class for another day.