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Don’t Think Huggins Hugging Butler Will Be Forgotten
When West Virginia Head Coach Bob Huggins walked out onto the floor at the national semi-finals, his team was trailing the Duke Blue Devils by double digits and his star player, senior Da' Sean Butler, was writhing in pain with what turned out to be a torn ACL. To many in the crowd and watching at home, it was déjà vu all over again for Huggins. Who could forget Huggins' similar stroke of bad luck at Cincinnati when Kenyon Martin broke his leg at the Conference USA Tournament in 2000? Butler's injury, like Martin's, meant the end of any real hopes for Huggins' team to have a shot at winning the national title. In both instances the injuries brought to sudden ends the collegiate careers of players who were among the best in college basketball.
As Huggins knelt over Butler and tried to salve what surely was gut-wrenching pain and disappointment, you can be sure that the parents of every blue chip high school basketball player around the country sat up and took notice. Though often sarcastically referred to as "Huggy Bear" by Bill Raftery, this year Huggins' gruff demeanor belied a seemingly mellower, gentler bear who is eminently more . . . well, huggable. Clearly Butler is a kid who means a lot to his coach, not only because he's a great player, but also because he's proven himself to be a model citizen and a credit to his university. And it didn't hurt that Huggins' team played with more grit and determination than many teams with equal or better talent. That alone will make a coach all warm and fuzzy inside.
In Butler, Huggins inherited a player that he could build a team around: fearless, gifted, intelligent, and always under control. In Huggins, Butler found a coach who turned out to be much more than just a stern taskmaster. Butler found a role model who also "had his back" in the best of times as well as in the worst of times. While the Mountaineers didn't make it all the way to the mountaintop in 2010, they might yet find their way there in the near future because of the care and affection this coach showed for his player, with a hug that won't soon be released - from memory that is.