A Bob Huggins story

In nearly 16 years of covering Bob Huggins, I’ve assembled quite a collection of Huggs stories. This is one of my favorites because it shows how good he was at times at creating his own reality, of believing what he wanted to believe – especially about the media:

We were in Milwaukee. UC had beaten Marquette and there were a few of us, along with Huggins, in the bar at the Hyatt Hotel after the game. I asked Bob who his least favorite writer was in Cincinnati and he named Tim Sullivan, who was then the sports columnist at The Enquirer. He then recounted how when Huggins recruited Art Long, Sully had written a critical column in which he said he wouldn’t want his daughter going to the same school that Art Long attended. “Now,” Huggins said, “his daughter goes to UC!”

I told him that that wasn’t true, that Sully did not have a daughter at UC. But Huggs was insistent. “Yes, he does,” he said. “His daughter goes there now.” To which I replied, “Bob, Sully’s daughter is 11 years old.”

“Oh,” Huggs said quietly. “I thought she did.”

During Huggs’ last year at UC, he once told me that if I ever decide to write a book about him, I shouldn’t leave my house. He was kidding. At least I think he was.