Background and career
Robert Edward Huggins (born September 21, 1953), nicknamed "Huggy Bear", is an American former college basketball coach. He was the head coach at Walsh, Akron, Cincinnati, Kansas State, and West Virginia. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2022. Huggins is the sixth men's college basketball coach with 900 or more career victories. He has been to 24 total NCAA tournaments, including 23 in the last 26 seasons. He has led his teams to nine Sweet Sixteen appearances, four Elite Eight appearances (three at Cincinnati and one at West Virginia University), and two Final Four appearances (1992 with Cincinnati and 2010 with West Virginia). Huggins has also lost in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament a total of 16 times. As of March 2021, Huggins has averaged 23 wins per season over the course of his career. He is also the second coach to win 300 games at two schools. Huggins released a statement announcing his resignation and retirement from West Virginia in 2023, following his drunk driving arrest. He later denied having officially resigned in a letter his lawyer sent to the university demanding his reinstatement.
Huggins, who had moved from Morgantown, West Virginia to Port Washington, Ohio, with his family, played basketball for his father, Charles, at Indian Valley South High School. As a senior, he helped lead his team to a 26–0 season. He was a three-year all-state pick, the Ohio Player of the Year in 1972, and he finished his high school career with 2,438 points, 12th in Ohio history at the time. Huggins began college at Ohio University. After his freshman season he transferred to his native West Virginia. He played point guard for the Mountaineers from 1975 until 1977 under head coach Joedy Gardner. His career-high was 28 points against Virginia Tech. He averaged 13.2 points as a senior and totaled 800 career points in his three collegiate seasons. He graduated from WVU magna cum laude with a double major in education and physical education and subsequently received a master's degree in health administration from WVU.
Huggins began his coaching career as a graduate assistant at West Virginia under Gardner in 1977. He then spent two years as an assistant to Eldon Miller at Ohio State University. Huggins was 27 when he became a collegiate head coach for the first time, at Walsh University in 1980. In three seasons at Walsh, he compiled a 71–26 record, twice earning NAIA District 22 Coach of the Year honors. Huggins directed the Walsh 1982–83 team to a perfect 30–0 regular season mark and an eventual 34–1 mark. After serving as an assistant at University of Central Florida for the 1983–84 season, Huggins was named head coach of the University of Akron. Huggins compiled a 97–46 record and reached post-season play in three of his five seasons at Akron, including an NCAA bid in 1985–86 season.
Huggins was the head coach of the Cincinnati Bearcats from 1989 to 2005. When Huggins was hired, the Bearcats had not earned a bid to the NCAA tournament since 1977. The Bearcats were invited to the NIT in his first two years, and then advanced to the Final Four of the 1992 NCAA tournament, Huggins' third season as coach. This was the first of 13 consecutive seasons in which the Bearcats appeared in the NCAA tournament.
Overall, Huggins compiled a 399–127 record (.759) in his 16 years at Cincinnati, making him the winningest basketball coach in the school's history. Only Ed Jucker has a better win percentage among Bearcats coaches. Huggins directed Cincinnati to ten conference regular-season titles and eight league tournament titles. The Bearcats appeared in post-season play in each of Huggins' 16 seasons. In addition to their Final Four appearance in 1992, they advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament two other times, in 1993 and 1996. Huggins earned the Ray Meyer Award as the Conference USA Coach of the Year a record three times (1997–98, 1998–99, and 1999–2000), and was a unanimous choice for C-USA Coach of the Decade. He was selected national coach of the year by ESPN.com in 2001–02. He was named co-national coach of the year by The Sporting News and was Basketball Times' national coach of the year in 1997–98. His teams won five consecutive conference tournament titles—all four Great Midwest Conference titles from 1992 to 1995 and the first Conference USA men's basketball tournament in 1996. During his tenure, Huggins coached three consensus All-Americans: Danny Fortson, Kenyon Martin, and Steve Logan.
Huggins was arrested for driving under the influence in Fairfax, Ohio on June 8, 2004. He ultimately pleaded no contest to DUI. A judge ordered Huggins to pay a $350 fine plus court costs, and to attend a three-day state-certified intervention program. On August 23, 2005, UC President Nancy L. Zimpher said that the Bearcat program under Huggins didn't fit with her plan to upgrade UC's academic reputation. Zimpher had been embarrassed by Huggins's DUI arrest, news of which broke on the morning of her first commencement as UC's president, at which Coretta Scott King spoke. In addition, an assistant coach, two players and a recruit had been arrested in the spring of 2005. Later that day, Zimpher and athletic director Bob Goin gave Huggins 24 hours to resign and take a $3 million buyout or accept reassignment outside the athletic department for the balance of his contract. Had Huggins not responded, he would have been fired. Multiple letters between UC and Huggins' attorney showed that Huggins had known weeks in advance that his ouster was imminent. He accepted the $3 million buyout.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
