Bob Huggins

By Allyson Turner

As the son of a coach, Bob Huggins had a good idea what it took to be successful on the sideline. In his tenth season as Cincinnati coach, Bob Huggins has lead the Bearcats to a 25-4 regular-season record and their fourth consecutive Conference USA regular-season championship. Under Huggins' leadership, the Bearcats have won six conference tournament titles and advanced to the NCAA Tournament's Elite Eight three times (1992, '93, '96), including a Final Four appearance in '92. Recently named the 1998-99 recipient of the Ray Meyer Coach of the Year Award, Huggins has been a conference coach of the year seven times.

As a player at West Virgina, Huggins was a two-time Academic All-American and team MVP his senior year. He graduated magna cum laude in 1977 and received his master's degree in 1978. Huggins was only 27 when he was hired as the head coach of Walsh College in 1980.

In high school, Huggins was All-Ohio for three years, and in '72 was the Ohio Player of the Year. Bob's father, Charles, coached his son in high school and also was a very succesful coach, guiding his high school teams to four state championshps.

 

Bob Huggins is the winningest coach in Cincinnati history. (Allsport)

Which coach do you most admire, past or present?
My father. I think the majority of what I've learned about basketball and what basketball teaches you about life, I learned from my father.

What was the best piece of advice he gave you?
He told me don't take a job that you're afraid to lose because then you may compromise your principles and your ethics and what you really believe in.

What wisdom have you tried to pass along to your students?
Hopefully, the will to win and the will to succeed.

How much did your playing days at West Virgina mold you as a coach?
They helped me a lot. That was my first dealing with Division I basketball and I learned a lot.

Who was the toughest player you ever faced?
Adrian Dantley.

What is the best part about being a coach?
Seeing your guys succeed. Seeing them out in the community and being productive members of society and feeling like you had a part of that.

What is the worst?
If one would fail. That would be terrible.

How important is weight training to this team?
It's really important to us because we don't have four or five All-Americans like everybody else that we're expected to compete against. We've got to get our guys stronger and better physically.

What is it about Bob Huggins that would make a player want to play for him?
We care about them. I don't think there's any question that when they come into our program, they come into a program that cares about them as people.

Obviously, you've had a lot of great players come through your program. How does Kenny Satterfield, a recruit who'll be with Cincinnati next season, rate?
Potentially, he's as good as anybody we've had. There's a lot of water to go over the dam yet though. He's so young. I think that Kenny has the work ethic and the desire to be a great player. He's much like Danny Forston and Nick Van Exel and those guys were. But you never really know until you get him and get going.

What are you intimidated by?
Things I can't see.

For each of the following sports figures, what is the first thought that comes to mind?