Bob Huggins Has ‘No Place in the Lives of Young Men Who Need Quality Leadership,’ Says WVU Mega-Donor
The West Virginia Mountaineers athletic department owes much of its prestige and success to the donations of mega booster Ken Kendrick.
Kendrick, a billionaire businessman and owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, is the co-founder of the Country Roads Trust (West Virginia NIL) and a graduate of WVU. When he talks, the folks in Morgantown listen up.
Well, on Wednesday, Kendrick did some talking.
In the hours that followed a West Virginia press release that announced that the Mountaineers would begin a nationwide search for a new head basketball coach, Kendrick was asked by a local news station if former coach Bob Huggins should be considered for the job. Huggins, of course, was arrested for DUI last summer and subsequently left the program.
Kendrick didn’t pull a single punch in his response to Huggins’s chances of regaining his seat on the WVU bench.
“I’m going to be, as I’m known to be, pretty candid on that,” Kendrick warned. “I think WVU and their handling of the Bob Huggins debacle probably were too lenient with him. Had he worked for me, he would have not had a job after he engaged in the two series of homophobic remarks back in the Spring, and then was retained under very difficult circumstances. And then lost his job as the result of a drunken stupor, I will call it.”
“It’s the second time he’s lost a job because of drunkenness. It may not be remembered by many, but it is by me. He was let go by Cincinnati for exactly the same reason.”
Kendrick goes on to be pretty clear on his stance with Bob Huggins’ ties to West Virginia going forward, and from the sounds of it, Huggins won’t be coming back to Morgantown for a job if Kendrick has anything to say about it.
“He has no place in the lives of young men who deserve quality leadership,” Kendrick said. “I would wonder about the mental capacity of any leader of any university that would consider hiring [Huggins] for a coaching position. That would be more than a hard no. Instead of being in the Hall of Fame, he should be in the Hall of Shame.”
Kendrick did recognize that Huggins was dealing with a disease, that is, alcoholism, and commended him for seeking help. However, that won’t be enough to have the Hall of Famer representing the Blue and Gold again any time soon.
“His future with WVU sports is totally at an end.”
