Bob Huggins has been a college basketball head coach since 1984 when he took over at Akron, spending five years with the Zips before making a name for himself at Cincinnati. There he made the Bearcats a power program, reaching 14 consecutive NCAA Tournaments, and after one year at Kansas State, he’s spent the last 16 at West Virginia.
Huggins still has ties to Cincinnati, as well as less than stellar feelings about Cincy’s longtime rival Xavier, and on Monday he made an appearance on longtime Cincinnati radio host Bill Cunningham’s show, where he made remarks that very well may bring an end to his career.
After being asked about whether he’d gone after any Xavier transfers, Huggins used a homophobic slur multiple times when talking about Xavier fans after an incident in a Cincinnati-Xavier game years ago (via Awful Announcing).
Here’s the audio of Bob Huggins calling Xavier fans “Catholic f–s” during an appearance on Bill Cunningham’s WLW radio show in Cincinnati pic.twitter.com/JTftGx9rQE
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) May 8, 2023
Huggins: “Any school that can throw rubber penises on the floor and then say they didn’t do it, by god they can get away with anything.”
Cunningham: “I think it was transgender night wasn’t it?”
Huggins: “It was a Crosstown Shootout, yeah, no, what it was, was all those f**s, those Catholic f**s I think.”
Cunningham: “All right.”
Huggins: “They were envious they didn’t have one.”
There’s no possible excuse for using that kind of derogatory slur, and Huggins noted that in a statement apologizing and saying he’ll accept whatever consequences are coming his way.
— WVU Men’s Basketball (@WVUhoops) May 8, 2023
One would expect, and Huggins seems to as well based on his statement, that he will no longer be the coach at West Virginia for long.