West Virginia head basketball coach Bob Huggins won’t be fired for using a gay slur during a radio interview in Cincinnati earlier this week. Instead, he’ll serve a three-game suspension and have his salary reduced by $1 million per season. In addition, his amended contract is no longer a multi-year deal and is now a year-to-year agreement.
The 69-year-old Huggins was doing an interview Monday on WLW 700-AM when he was asked if he’d ever tried to get players from Xavier, his bitter rival from his coaching days at Cincinnati from 1989-2005, to transfer to WVU.
Huggins responded by accusing Xavier fans of throwing rubber penises on the court when the Musketeers were playing the Bearcats.
“Yeah, what it was was all those f—, those Catholic f—, I think,” Huggins said, using a homophobic slur.
Hours later, Huggins released a statement.
Huggins, a 2022 Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame inductee, leads all active men’s basketball head coaches in career wins with 935.
After an official review by the university, West Virginia decided to suspend him and add other stipulations for him to follow in the future. The money from Huggins’ pay cut will go the school’s LGBTQ+ Center, the Carruth Center “and other state and national organizations that support marginalized communities,” WVU’s statement said.
After his punishment was announced on Wednesday, Huggins released another statement.
Huggins has been at his alma mater for 16 seasons. He has taken the Mountaineers to 11 NCAA Tournaments, five Sweet 16 appearances and one Final Four in 2010.
Huggins has a 345-203 record (63.0%) at WVU and a 934-415 career mark (69.2%). He took Cincinnati to the NCAA Tournament in each of his last 14 years at the school, and the Bearcats were in the NIT in his first two seasons.
Huggins took Cincinnati to the Final Four in 1992 and made it to the Elite Eight twice (1993 and 1996).