Huggins Has Progressive Cognitive Condition, Family Says — SkimNews
Get the Sports newsletter
Daily sports — scores, transfers, the storylines from the leagues you actually follow. Free.
- Bob Huggins has been diagnosed with a progressive cognitive condition that has begun affecting his memory and daily life, his family said in a statement released by the University of Cincinnati on Wednesday.
- Huggins is set to be inducted into the University of Cincinnati Athletics Hall of Fame on Friday; he is the winningest coach in Bearcats history with 399 wins from 1989 to 2005 and was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022.
- Across stints at Walsh, Akron, Cincinnati, Kansas State, and West Virginia, Huggins won 935 career games, reached 26 NCAA tournaments, and made two Final Fours — including a 1992 Cincinnati run that ended in a national semifinal loss to Michigan.
- Jerrod Calhoun, a 2004 Cincinnati graduate and former Huggins assistant, was named the Bearcats' head coach in March after spending five seasons on Huggins' West Virginia staff from 2007 to 2012.
- In May 2023, Huggins used an anti-gay slur on a Cincinnati radio station, drawing a three-game suspension, a $1 million salary reduction, and a sensitivity training requirement.
- Huggins resigned from West Virginia in June 2023 after a DUI arrest in Pittsburgh; a prior 2004 DUI arrest while at Cincinnati contributed to his firing from the Bearcats in 2005.
Why it matters: The 73-year-old Huggins — one of only a handful of coaches to reach 935 career wins and 26 NCAA tournaments — is publicly disclosing his diagnosis days before the school that made him famous inducts him, reframing a legacy whose final coaching chapter had been dominated by a 2023 anti-gay slur and a DUI arrest rather than his on-court accomplishments.
Ask SkimNews
