Signed and Sealed
May 06, 2008 08:54 PM | General
May 6, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Last Friday West Virginia University and men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins announced a 10-year contract extension that will keep the veteran coach at his alma mater until his 65th birthday.
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| Bob Huggins answers questions during Friday afternoon's news conference.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“I’m excited that we can go full steam into the future,” Huggins said last Friday afternoon. “As I’ve said before we want to win a national championship here. We want to go play in the Final Four. We want to be one of the people that year-in and year-out when they talk about people having a chance to win a national championship we want to be in that conversation.
“You can’t do that without the support of the people that you work for,” Huggins said. “We are very blessed to have people like that here.”
According to Director of Athletics Ed Pastilong, Huggins will make in the area of $1.5 million per year at the beginning of the contract with provisions to earn much more through incentives.
“We hope that he receives all of those incentives and I’m confident that he will,” Pastilong said. “I like what Bob said about a national championship.”
Huggins is one of the most successful coaches in the country. Last year he directed West Virginia to a 26-11 record, a spot in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 following wins over Arizona and Duke, and a No. 17 final ranking. It was his 22nd 20-win season and 16th NCAA Tournament appearance in a 26-year coach career that has included stops at Walsh, Akron, Cincinnati and Kansas State.
Huggins said the length of the contract was the University’s idea.
“A lot of times people will let a contract run out and I think it shows initiative on our administration,” Huggins said. “I think good employees are happy employees and when they come to you and say we want you to be here for the rest of your coaching career that means a lot. I don’t know if they could say anything that could mean more to me and my family than that.”
Pastilong said there were no provisions in the contract for facility upgrades and program improvements. West Virginia is presently raising the funds needed to construct a basketball practice facility that will benefit both men’s and women’s basketball.
“I have a great deal of trust in Bobby, the University has a great deal of trust in Bobby and it’s evident that Bobby has a great deal of trust in his University. We’re going to work together to get that project done as quickly as we possibly can,” Pastilong said. “We’ve already had a great deal of interest from donors who have the ability to get that project started.”
Huggins is pleased with the support his program has received from the moment he stepped onto campus.
“I got here and sat and talked to Eddie and he’s been very much on board,” Huggins said. “We needed a new scoreboard and Eddie had plans to get a new scoreboard before I got here. We need a practice facility. When I talked about that Eddie already knew where he wanted to put it.
“We’re not doing anything that Eddie didn’t already have in the works. I didn’t come in here and say, Eddie we don’t have this and we don’t have that,” Huggins said. “The guy has been our athletic director since I played here. He knows what’s going on.”
“We are working on that practice facility full blast,” Pastilong added. “Our Mountaineer Athletic Club, our foundation, Bobby, people that associate with Bobby and our entire athletic department – we’re focusing on raising funds for that particular structure. We think that structure is very important to Bobby and to Mike Carey preparing our basketball teams. We also think that structure is very important toward reducing the use of the Coliseum floor for other sports. That’s our No. 1 focus.”
Pastilong is happy with the agreement in place.
“We structured this to Bobby’s liking and to what was our liking,” Pastilong noted. “This is a good marriage. Bobby is a gentleman who was a captain on our basketball team - a scholar athlete who is one of the premiere winningest active coaches right now in the country.
“He returns to his alma mater and in his first year he takes us to the Sweet 16,” Pastilong said. “He’s having an outstanding recruiting year and before us was an opportunity for him to continue that outstanding career with us and it was an opportunity for us to continue to have one of the strongest basketball programs in the country.”
Pastilong mentioned, too, that WVU’s negotiations with Huggins’s agent Richard Katz were amiable.
“Mr. Katz was very good to work with and we’re really appreciative of that,” Pastilong said.
