Huggins Is Officially Gone

[korme]

Headline on the frontpage of ESPN. Dammit.

This is what I was talking about how this is going to ruin UC:

Recruiting woes? The buyout of Bob Huggins is already having an effect on the Bearcats recruiting. Jason Bennett, a 7-footer considered a top-10 center prospect, was going to attend UC because of Huggins. Those plans, however, ahev changed. "They now have no interest in Cincinnati," Bennett's high school coach Rex Morgan told the Cincinnati Enquirer of Bennett and his family. "He was going there because of Huggins. Now, with the way Cincinnati handled everything, I hope no one goes there."

Even O.J. Mayo, considered the top junior prospect in all of high school basketball, said the move hurt the Bearcats' chances.

"I'll still consider them on the top five of my list," Mayo told the paper. "But it would make it a little more difficult for me to choose UC, because you'd have a new coach and new relationship, whereas me and Coach Huggins have had a relationship since seventh grade."








--



So we could have gotten OJ Mayo, but he'll probably go to Duke or Kentucky or something now. Ugh. Stupid President Nancy Zimpher.

[korme]

http://espn.starwave.com/media/ncb/2005/0823/photo/a_zimpher_195.jpg

Fitting that this crass evil lady somewhat resembles the late Marge Schott.

[korme]

Not usually a fan of Dicky V but nice article here:

Cincy soap opera leaves Huggins out in cold
Dick Vitale
SPECIAL TO ESPN.COM

Aug. 23, 2005
Wow, what a crazy scenario at the University of Cincinnati. Bob Huggins is out as head coach after 16 seasons, including 14 straight trips to the NCAA Tournament.

This is a shocking report, considering that there was a news conference in May saying he would finish the final two years of his contract at Cincinnati. The bottom line is that school president Nancy Zimpher was not happy with the perception of the program ever since she arrived at the school in 2003.

<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2" width="5"><spacer type="block" height="1" width="5"></td><td width="250">http://sportsmed.starwave.com/media/nba/2000/0730/photo/aa_bob.jpg</td></tr><tr><td width="250">Bob Huggins was seeking a contract extension. Instead, he's out.</td></tr></tbody></table> Zimpher would not extend Huggins' contract through a roll-over clause that would have given the coach a four-year arrangement; instead, she limited him to two years left on his contract.

Huggins was unhappy with that situation, and he was trying to get the president to agree to an extension. Huggins also inquired about a three-year extension, which Zimpher decided against.

I honestly believe Zimpher felt that if Huggins coached the next two seasons and had success in the Big East, there would have been tremendous pressure to extend his contract.

The talk shows will be heating up big-time in Cincinnati, you can bet on that.

Now Huggins reportedly has a $3 million offer to walk away, or he can take a $2.7 million deal to work in an administrative role, one that would include benefits, in fundraising for the school.

This whole Huggins controversy has led to turmoil in Cincinnati, especially on the radio talk shows. Huggins is a popular figure with a great résumé -- a .740 win percentage with the Bearcats (399-127), a Final Four appearance in 1992, three trips to the Elite Eight, and five players picked in the first round of the NBA draft.

Huggins has support from the fans. The coach is all about work ethic and discipline, yet he had problems with players struggling off the court, plus his own DUI incident last year. He sat out two months to straighten out his life, and he appeared back on the right track last season.

Recent problems with Bearcats player Roy Bright (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=22173) (admitted to bringing a firearm on campus) and recruit Tyree Evans (accused of statutory rape in Massachusetts) did not help the program's image.

Huggins saw his Bearcats turn the corner academically, as 11 players graduated over the past four seasons.

Also realize that Huggins was loyal to Cincinnati, turning down NBA coaching jobs as well as passing on other Division I openings.

<!---------------------PULL-QUOTE TABLE (BEGIN)---------------------> <table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0"> <tbody><tr valign="top"> <td width="4"><spacer type="block" height="1" width="3"></td> <td>
</td> <td width="225"> With Cincinnati entering the Big East in two months, the timing is absolutely a disaster. </td> </tr> </tbody></table> <!---------------------PULL-QUOTE TABLE (END)---------------------> The Cincinnati program will move on after this stunning development. There are six newcomers scheduled to play this season, including Devan Downey (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=26951), a guard who was Mr. Basketball in South Carolina last year, and talented swingman DeAndre Coleman (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=26950).

With Cincinnati entering the Big East in two months, the timing is absolutely a disaster. The Bearcats have a talented returning nucleus with Eric Hicks (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=11903), James White (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=4976), Jihad Muhammad (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=22174) and Armein Kirkland (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/player/profile?playerId=11905) back.

Look for athletics director Bob Goin, originally scheduled to retire in 2006, to move that date up. The Bearcats will look for a new athletics director to hire a full-time coach. For the moment, associate head coach Andy Kennedy, a former player at NC State and UAB, is the likely interim head coach.

Huggins has made some mistakes, and we all do. I think that's why he is loved in Cincinnati -- because he represents the blue-collar guy, fighting and scrapping to get ahead. There are bumps in the road, and he hurt nobody but himself with the DUI (thank God nobody was injured). He was remorseful over that situation.

Now it will be interesting to see the reaction around Cincinnati basketball as it heads into the Big East. It could be a tumultuous season ahead.

[Lathum]

wow, she is evil looking

[Chas in Cinti]

http://espn.starwave.com/media/ncb/2005/0823/photo/a_zimpher_195.jpg

Fitting that this crass evil lady somewhat resembles the late Marge Schott.

Mrs. Doubtfire?

[ThunderingHERD]

So we could have gotten OJ Mayo, but he'll probably go to Duke or Kentucky or something now.

No, no, Mayo is going to Carolina. Fortunately, I don't think Duke is on his short list.

[Psmith]

Huggins saw his Bearcats turn the corner academically, as 11 players graduated over the past four seasons.



Am I supposed to be impressed with that stat? I don't call that "turning the corner", I call that "being somewhere in the same county as corners."

[JonInMiddleGA]

Right it down ... UC becomes perennial BigEast cellar-dweller, never to be heard from at the national level again (or at least not as long as this scary looking woman is there).

[rexallllsc]

Are people seriously defending Bob Huggins? wtf?

[Solecismic]

Am I the only one who thinks college basketball in general is on the fast path to obsolete? The best players are gone after one year (and yes, that kills graduation rates) and coaches are now held responsible for both fielding a successful team and only recruiting well behaved children.

I've got news for PC idiots like Nancy Zimpher. Many of top basketball players in the country come from pretty rough neighborhoods. Some are going to come in with serious flaws. They need role models, they need time. Basketball gives them an opportunity to straighten their lives out.

Life is not the movie Hoosiers. And Huggins is not a villain. Not even mildly annoying, like Bobby Knight. This is just one more reason to hate college basketball. I hope college football remains mostly above this. The Clarett court decision helped enormously.

[korme]

Am I supposed to be impressed with that stat? I don't call that "turning the corner", I call that "being somewhere in the same county as corners."
Are you shitting me? You only get 15 players to go through a system every 5 years. What number did you expect?

[Psmith]

Are you shitting me? You only get 15 players to go through a system every 5 years. What number did you expect?Okay, okay, I was talking through my hat. Have mercy on me -- I hate Dick Vitale and I've been coughing my head off for three day, which makes me harsh and unmathematical.

[sovereignstar]

Are people seriously defending Bob Huggins? wtf?

Yes.

[General Mike]

Thank you Nancy Zimpher

,A Rutgers fan

[molson]

Doesn't a University have the final say regarding who gets into their school? Why should it be Bob Huggins' job to do background checks, predict future behavior, etc? He's a basketball coach. If a school wants better behaved athletes, they could always, you know, raise their standards. Dartmouth basketball doesn't have these problems, and it ain't because their coach is a better judge of character.

[rexallllsc]

They need role models

Maybe the University President thought so as well - and decided that the DUI wasn't a good thing?

[Gary Gorski]

Am I the only one who thinks college basketball in general is on the fast path to obsolete? The best players are gone after one year (and yes, that kills graduation rates) and coaches are now held responsible for both fielding a successful team and only recruiting well behaved children.

I've got news for PC idiots like Nancy Zimpher. Many of top basketball players in the country come from pretty rough neighborhoods. Some are going to come in with serious flaws. They need role models, they need time. Basketball gives them an opportunity to straighten their lives out.

Life is not the movie Hoosiers. And Huggins is not a villain. Not even mildly annoying, like Bobby Knight. This is just one more reason to hate college basketball. I hope college football remains mostly above this. The Clarett court decision helped enormously.

How does Bob Huggins getting canned put college hoops on the fast track to oblivion? The best players have been leaving early for decades and now with the new NBA CBA college teams will actually have more talent as guys like OJ Mayo will have to play for someone for a year before heading to the NBA and what does that have to do with Huggins being fired anyway?

NCAA hoops have survived Tarkanian being fired and even the great Bob Knight being fired so I'm sure that Huggybear not roaming the sidelines at UC anymore won't make it any less popular (although it certainly will hurt UC in terms of recruits and the talent of their program)

Huggins wasn't fired for recruiting "problem kids" - Huggins got fired for being the problem himself with a DUI amongst other things. Look at the college coaches (both football and basketball) who get fired for reasons other than losing - its the ones who either have public problems involving alcohol like Huggins or Eustachy, coaches who get caught doing illegal things like giving recruits cars or coaches who do not discipline their problem athletes and it is just as prevelant in college football as in college basketball (and moreso because there are more players). Remember Gary Moeller and his drunken night which cost him his job at our beloved UM or even more recently guys like Gary Barnett? Coaches cannot dictate every move of their players' lives - but they can set a good example themselves and discipline players who do mess up.

There's plenty of teams who recruit "problem kids" and have coaches who are strict with them and good role models and those kids are just fine - look at an Eddie Sutton or someone similar just the same as there are coaches in college football who recruit those kids and do a fine job mentoring them and helping them toe the line. Lloyd Carr isn't in risk of losing his job because one of his players decided to go around town exposing himself while peeping in windows. I just don't see how there is any difference in what is expected of a NCAA basketball coach as opposed to an NCAA football coach. Both are expected to win games and keep a good image of the university and when they fail to do so they get canned so I'm not sure why Huggins being fired would be a reason to hate college basketball or how college football stays above that when the schools treat their coaches the same way and expect the same things.

[Solecismic]

How many of us out there have a DUI? I don't myself, but when I was younger, I did drive home from a club or a party a few times when I shouldn't have. I happened not to get caught.

Now it's lucky that no one was hurt, and I do not advocate ever driving drunk. But it happens, and it happens with good people. I know Huggins was kind of sloppy drunk when he was caught last year, but, again, no one was hurt.

I speed every time I'm out on the highway. It's just impossible to stop, for whatever reason. And I'm breaking the law.

Other people yak on their cell phones and are far more dangerous drivers when they do so, according to many studies. Some say that means there should be laws against that, which there are in many areas. So far, there are no laws I know of preventing consumption of a drippy Burger King Double Whopper with Cheese while driving, or inserting the latest Kelly Clarkson CD into the CD player while driving.

Yet those activities may also cause a crash - the same crash that Huggins never had.

I'm not advocating removing DUI laws. Habitual drunks are a menace on the roads, and probably will cause a serious accident down the road. But there's no evidence Huggins is a habitual drunk. You guys are acting like he's a bad person.

Now Moeller was arrested for assault and battery, as well as disorderly conduct. That seems more of a character issue to me. He also lost a lot of games, which may be a bigger crime in the eyes of Wolverine fans. We don't take kindly to 8-4 seasons back to back.

I didn't say I hated college basketball because of this incident. I am saying that college basketball has lost popularity because of several issues, the largest of which is kids leaving so early to go to the NBA. Because basketball is such a distant second to football, idiot presidents like Zimpher have more power over them. I doubt Bobby Knight would have been fired had he been the football coach at Indiana.

[Gary Gorski]

How many of us out there have a DUI? I don't myself, but when I was younger, I did drive home from a club or a party a few times when I shouldn't have. I happened not to get caught.

But there's no evidence Huggins is a habitual drunk. You guys are acting like he's a bad person.


Jim, there's a big difference in average guy getting a DUI than Bob Huggins. Huggins is/was the most recognizable face from that university so anything wrong he does is magnified 1000 times and rightfully so - if you are going to be the public face of something and are rewarded very well to do so as he was then it comes with the territory. Don't you think there would be a bit of a PR difference for Ford Motor Co if Bill Ford Jr is arrested for a DUI as opposed to some guy on the line? There's a lot more money at stake for the university to be lost by negative publicity like that then what they will make from Bearcat games.

Also Huggins is supposed to be a leader and a role model - him being a sloppy drunk is fine if he does it in his own house. How is he supposed to tell his players not to go to the frat party or whatever if he's getting busted for DUI? He might be the nicest guy in the world, he might be a habitual drunk or he might lie somewhere in the middle but regardless his DUI arrest was a present day thing. Its not like oh 20 years ago he was arrested for DUI so we should fire him - it was a horrible choice he made and he pays the price of losing his position as an important public figure of the university. Shouldn't the person in charge of a group of 18-22 year old kids be a little more responsible than to be drinking and driving?

I didn't say I hated college basketball because of this incident. I am saying that college basketball has lost popularity because of several issues, the largest of which is kids leaving so early to go to the NBA. Because basketball is such a distant second to football, idiot presidents like Zimpher have more power over them. I doubt Bobby Knight would have been fired had he been the football coach at Indiana.

I disagree on the leaving early bit because its been going on for decades and nobody has seemed to mind too much. LeBron and Kwame Brown weren't the first kids to skip college for the NBA and Carmello wasn't the first to leave after his freshman year. College sports are not about how long a guy stays because you know he's there a max of 4 playing years anyways and most guys who are 4 year players are guys who weren't good enough to play early on so you are only watching them for maybe two years anyways. Did people stop watching OSU or USC because Clarett and Williams left early? What happens if Clarett and Williams are successes in the NFL? Will more players drop out of school to take a year off simply to work out and not risk getting injured in a meaningless college game?

As for Bobby Knight I don't know about that. Indiana had stopped being a powerhouse school - I bet that if Knight was bringing home NCAA titles (or at least made decent runs at them) he wouldn't have been fired. Same thing with Moeller - if UM was 11-1 and had a shot at the National Championship I'm sure they would have swept the incident under the rug but 8-4 is a different story and not worth the negative publicity. There are some schools where basketball is the biggest sport but I think the method of thinking is pretty much the same regardless - if you win and you don't do too many horrible things you can stay but the minute you start losing then you're not worth it anymore. If Huggybear would have turned some of those first round flame outs into Final Fours I doubt he's looking for a new place to coach now either.

[ISiddiqui]

Because basketball is such a distant second to football, idiot presidents like Zimpher have more power over them.
I should hope that College Presidents have great power over THEIR university's college sports! This isn't a semi-pro league. This is part of the university itself!

[rexallllsc]

How many of us out there have a DUI? I don't myself, but when I was younger, I did drive home from a club or a party a few times when I shouldn't have. I happened not to get caught.

Now it's lucky that no one was hurt, and I do not advocate ever driving drunk. But it happens, and it happens with good people. I know Huggins was kind of sloppy drunk when he was caught last year, but, again, no one was hurt.

Many of top basketball players in the country come from pretty rough neighborhoods. Some are going to come in with serious flaws. They need role models, they need time.

The "no one was hurt" line is really weak.

From http://www.wcpo.com/news/2004/local/06/11/huggins.html

"Officers said Huggins had failed to keep his car inside marked lanes and remained at a light more than 10 seconds after it had turned green.

The arrest report says Huggins had slurred speech, red watery eyes and had a strong alcohol odor."

[timmynausea]

I think it's pretty ridiculous that he was fired. He got a DUI a year ago. If that's a legit reason to fire someone, why wait a year? It's totally an ego battle. Pathetic.

[Solecismic]

I see there's quite a bit of anger on this issue, so I'll make this my last post on it.

- I'm not being hypocritical on the role model angle. People get drunk, it's legal. He can turn a negative into a positive.

- It might scare the crap out of you to hear this, but the police don't catch a very high percentage of people who drive while intoxicated. On a Friday or Saturday night, there are probably more drunks on the roads than habitual speeders like me.

- You're condemning a huge percentage of the populace. About 20% of all men under the age of 40 have a DUI, including our president back in 1976 (when he was under 40).

- Role models should abound in a university climate. Former students who have become doctors, run successful businesses, etc. It's not solely the coach's domain. There is a value in the education.

- While university presidents should be strong, the DUI was more than a year ago and the dismissal is purely personal. Huggins was hired to build a successful basketball program, which he did extremely well. If she wants to hire based on other criteria, which is her right, she also has to face the wrath of enthusiastic alumni who donate money.

- Finally, had the Clarett case been successful, it would eventually have caused extraordinary harm to college football. It's not that the dozens who leave football one year early don't cause harm. The best basketball players today play one year in college at most, it seems. That causes extreme harm. What would 1979 be today? Magic and Larry in the NCAA finals? Not a chance.

[Gary Gorski]

Just because it's legal to get drunk does not mean its legal or ok to drive after doing so and just because nobody got hurt this time or that on the weekends there are people who are driving drunk doesn't mean it's not that big of a deal. Nobody is condeming the populace and your example about Bush is irrelevant. Huggins didn't get the DUI 30 years ago - he got it last year while employed as the head coach of men's basketball. Huggins should consider himself lucky that next year he'll be able to be on the sidelines of some lesser school rather than serving a lifetime jail term for killing someone in a car accident while he was drunk.

Huggins is supposed to be in charge of a group of young men ages 18-22 or so. Is there any other demographic that is less responsible with alcohol than that one? Should someone who gets arrested for DUI while employed as their leader/mentor really be playing a major influence in their lives? I agree that the coach shouldn't be the only role model in the university but for those 12-15 kids there is nobody on that campus who is a bigger influence in their day to day lives. I would suspect that if a prominent professor was arrested for a DUI that he or she would be shown the door as well.

Finally, players leaving early does not cause extreme harm to college basketball whereas it would in college football. College football is much more about individual stars than college basketball. Look at the hype for the Heisman - there's not that kind of hype for the Wooden Award. College basketball is about one thing - the NCAA tournament and people love it for the unknowns, the little guys who can upset teams like Cincy - that would never happen in college football even if they did decide to have a playoff system to crown a real champion. The fact that players do leave early also at least gives some parity to the league - you still have your big teams like Duke that are there every year but they really have to work hard to find new talent to replace the talent they are losing every year whereas you can get a team with a lesser known star that sticks around for a few years like a Marquette from two years ago and they can make a nice run. Plus there is a HUGE difference in players being ready to play in football and basketball - its really an apples and oranges comparison. Look at how many freshmen play and play well in NCAA hoops as opposed to in football? Its such a different game phyiscally that most of the young players in football simply aren't ready for the speed and physicallity of the game at that level let alone the NFL yet whereas in basketball its not such a difficult transition to make as long as you have the talent skillwise. Personally, I don't mind that LeBron skipped a year - if I wanted to watch LeBron its not like I couldn't watch the Cavs but for college I'm much more interested in watching the schools I like which I guess is why it doesn't really matter for me that kids leave early - I'm rooting for the school and the school is still there after the kid leaves and I think that the games are plenty exciting with or without the LeBrons and Amares just like I still like watching Michigan football. To me I just care that the Maize and Blue win - doesn't really matter what the name on the back of the jersey says as long as its good football or basketball which IMO both are.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I would suspect that if a prominent professor was arrested for a DUI that he or she would be shown the door as well.

I'm open to being proven wrong on this, but on the surface, I disagree. They'd either end up protected by their colleagues OR get kicked to the curb if they had a personality clash with anyone important enough to get them fired. But a DUI doesn't strike me as an automatic dismissal for too many places these days
(note: I'm not getting into whether it should or shouldn't be, I'm just saying I don't know of many places that it is)

I don't really have much of a dog in this fight, so I'm not too uncomfortable admitting that my own reaction is being influenced to some degree by the simple fact that I find Huggins to be likable, as opposed to the Cryptkeeper's sister who fired him. That woman's picture could be used to scare small children into obedience.

[panerd]

I heard some idiot on the radio today and saw either Michael Smith or Aldandae on Around the Horn yesterday talking about how Bob Huggins brought the University of Cincinnati to basketball prominance. WTF? I am not much older than these guys and I know about the Big 'O' and the teams of the '60s. Does sportswriting not require any sort of research anymore?

[cougarfreak]

The local paper here in Cincy said rumor had it that after Huggins was told his contract wasn't going to automatically renew, he was going to large donors of the program and telling them not to donate to the university. AND rumor has it he knew he was not going to finish out the final two years of his contract, and he just wanted to stay long enough to hurt the program so that they did not have time to hire a new coach. Sorry, but this firing was LONG overdue. Huggins had long become an embarssasment to the university.

hxxp://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050824/COL03/508240343/1082/SPT

[korme]

I heard some idiot on the radio today and saw either Michael Smith or Aldandae on Around the Horn yesterday talking about how Bob Huggins brought the University of Cincinnati to basketball prominance. WTF? I am not much older than these guys and I know about the Big 'O' and the teams of the '60s. Does sportswriting not require any sort of research anymore?
He probably meant back to prominance. Years after the Big O and before Huggins, we were to be blunt, mediocre.

[korme]

The local paper here in Cincy said rumor had it that after Huggins was told his contract wasn't going to automatically renew, he was going to large donors of the program and telling them not to donate to the university. AND rumor has it he knew he was not going to finish out the final two years of his contract, and he just wanted to stay long enough to hurt the program so that they did not have time to hire a new coach. Sorry, but this firing was LONG overdue. Huggins had long become an embarssasment to the university.

hxxp://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050824/COL03/508240343/1082/SPT
You be a Wildcats fan.

[cougarfreak]

You be a Wildcats fan.

No I'm not a wildcat fan, I'm a Louisville fan. I've got no dog in the fight, read the article. It's got nothing to do with who someone is a fan of. Most of the people outside of the Cincinnati market refer to UC as UNLV East.

[kcchief19]

I don't know enough of the specifics to make a firm decision, but I've leaned from the beginning that this was a case of one person or a handful of people deciding they wanted to get rid of Huggins and pounced on an opportunity.

I think Huggins has a lot of flaws. He's never been my flavor of tea. He fits into a category of coaches that I've always been conflicted about: coaches who recruit troubled kids. How much of it is a genuine interest to help kids and how much of it is to win ball games is a difficult balance. I've never liked Huggins much because I think he was more concerned with winning than taking kids and setting them straight. Maybe that's wrong; it's purely perception -- I obviosly don't know the guy.

I think that morals and ethics are important for people throughout an organization. If Cincinnati has a stated policy that explains if you get a DUI or other criminal conviction you face a penalty or dismissal and this is evenly applied, then I think it's hard to criticize. My guess is that if the school does have such a policy, Huggins was probably the first person fired under it in similar circumstances, even though I'm sure others within the university have been in similar predicaments.

I do have a sneaky suspicion that if Huggins had taken the team to the Final Four last year, he'd still be the coach.