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WVU Coaches Caravan visits Parkersburg

From left to right: West Virginia head coaches Neal Brown (football), Mark Kellogg (women’s basketball), Reed Sunahara (volleyball) and Vic Riggs (swimming and diving) field questions from Tony Caridi during Wednesday night’s WVU Coaches Caravan stop at the Parkersburg Country Club in Vienna. (Photo by Josh Hughes)

VIENNA — This year’s WVU Coaches Caravan stop to the MOV comes at a time where Mountaineer athletics have a lot of questions. For fans of the old gold and blue, new athletic director Wren Baker is someone they hope has plenty of answers. Emceed by the voice of WVU athletics, Tony Caridi, coaches fielded questions and gave some insight on the future of their respective programs.

Among the many topics on Wednesday night’s slate, was the future of men’s basketball head coach Bob Huggins. Huggins used homophobic slurs to refer to fans of Xavier University on a Monday afternoon Cincinnati radio show appearance. Despite an apology and subsequent statement released by the university, Huggins’ salary was slashed by $1 million, and his contract was amended to a year-by-year deal. That means his contract comes to an end on April 30, 2024. Huggins is also suspended for the first three games of the upcoming season.

While Huggins is expected to work collaboratively with LGBTQ+ leaders from across the state in an effort to make amends, Baker is confident Huggins can learn throughout the process.

“For the most part, we put out a statement earlier today, and I think it says everything that needs to be said,” he said. “I will just tell you that coach Huggins is very remorseful. He understands the hurt that was caused, and we’re going to work together to repair that. That’s our responsibility.”

Apart from that, other West Virginia coaches are excited for their upcoming seasons. Caridi asked a wide range of questions. From NIL deals to scheduling, nothing was off limits. Before the discussion, head football coach Neal Brown gave an update on his team and how it plans to bounce back from a 5-7 season a year ago.

“This is Mountaineer country, for sure. This is one of our best areas. There are a lot of great student athletes here, so when you start talking about our shareholders, particularly at WVU Athletics, Parkersburg is a really special area,” Brown said. “We’re going to be much improved. That’s the message for our fans. I really like what we have. The strength of our team is with our offensive line. We’re really talented at running back. I believe both quarterbacks in Garrett Greene and Nicco Marchiol are guys who can win games in the Big 12.

“We’re going to be improved defensively. We’ve got some pieces through the portal, but I think the most important thing to remember is the guys on our roster are going to be much improved.”

First, Caridi sat down with Baker to discuss his vision for the future. Baker, who was hired from North Texas last November, is happy to be in the Mountain State. He is ready to take on whatever challenges come his way.

“This week has been awesome. We were in Wheeling. We were in Beckley, and we go to Martinsburg tomorrow night. Really, it’s just great to get out and see all the people,” Baker said. “I think a lot of (the job) is just getting to know a new place. You want to meet everybody, get their opinions and learn from them. These first few months were about listening and learning about our strengths and weaknesses. What we’ll do is over the next 3-6 months, we’ll develop a 5-year strategic vision with specific initiatives and say, ‘These are the things we want to fix.’ All the way from recruiting, to nutrition, to mental health, to academic support and facilities. All of those things go into building championship programs and preparing kids to be leaders. They’ll be attainable objectives, and they’ll be objectives that’ll help us get better.”

Brown, alongside Mark Kellogg (women’s basketball), Reed Sunahara (volleyball) and Vic Riggs (swimming and diving) took questions from Caridi after Baker’s turn. A wide array of topics were covered.

“Athletic directors put together the football schedules. With basketball coaches, we do,” Kellogg said, as he is entering his first year at the helm. “We don’t even have our schedule set for this year yet. I was driving here today, and my director of operations was working on the schedule. We’re trying to find teams that want to schedule us, this late in the year. You build your schedule based on the team you expect to have. We should have a pretty good idea of what team we’re going to have, so we want to be as competitive as we can with the understanding that the Big 12 is going to give you all that you want and a little bit more. The goal for us is to advance. We want to go further.”

Sunahara spoke about what he likes most about volleyball. He’s spent eight seasons at WVU.

“Starting with playing and having success there, and coaching young women, we watch them grow as people,” he said. “Hopefully, we can get more players who want to play professionally, too. I like our squad. I want to help them. More importantly, I want them to have great lives after college and have great experiences in college. A lot of them want to play professionally, and that’s where I can come in and help them. We have a player playing in Peru, one in Finland, one in Cypress and also one in France. It’s made a difference in their lives to experience something like that.”

Riggs also gave his thoughts.

“We’re not a team sport, so last season, we did a lot of talk about how you can win individually,” he said. “You can get fifth, you can get 16th, you can get 12th or not even make it at (Big 12 meets) and still do a best time. That’s still a win for a kid. When you see those kids accomplish something they didn’t believe they could do, it’s great. Our sport is very demanding, and these kids start when they’re 6, 7, 8 years old. It’s hard work for these kids, so when you see them achieve something they didn’t think they could do, that’s the real excitement for us.”

Contact Josh Hughes at jhughes@newsandsentinel.com

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