Alma, our Alma Mater,
The home of Mountaineers
Sing we of thy honor
Everlasting through the years.
(The first verse of the West Virginia University Alma Mater.)
The current controversy over the forced resignation of WVU basketball coach Bob Huggins has me thinking about my Alma Mater and what the school has meant to students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends of the University for 156 years.
The University is not just buildings, classrooms and sports events. It is a foundational experience that creates part of an individual’s sense of self. It leaves a lasting imprint that forms a lasting connection. It is perpetual, everlasting through the years.
That connection extends beyond graduates and professors to those West Virginians who never attended WVU, but are devoted fans who celebrate the victories and suffer the disappointments.
Coaches and players come and go through the years. Fans have their favorites, but their enduring loyalty is to the University and the Mountaineers, not the individuals. Those who have led WVU most successfully, whether in academics or athletics, realize this. Their actions and decisions reflect a greater good, rather than expediency.
When those decision makers err, there is hell to pay because we must hold the University to a high standard. Alumni, faculty, staff and friends see those mistakes—real and perceived—as damaging the University.
The same is true when students misbehave. The shame of their misdeeds extends to the entire school. The majority suffer for the actions of a few.
And that brings me back to Huggins.
His actions are his own, but they affect the entire University and, by extension, those hundreds of thousands of people who identify with WVU. The two incidents that led to his forced retirement were embarrassing to him and the University, but WVU left open an opportunity for him to, at some point, return—not as a coach, but as a respected and beloved member of the University community.
However, Huggins has closed that option with revisionist history about his resignation and his feeble attempt to shift responsibility away from himself and on to WVU for his ouster. He is attempting to put himself and his selfish needs above the University he purports to love.
Huggins built a sense of entitlement over the years. The leadership of the University deserves some blame for allowing his power to get out of proportion. Huggins reached a point where only he could cause his downfall, and he did.
His vain attempt to regain what he lost will fail because he is wrong, legally and morally. As for the University, as the Alma Mater reminds us, we will sing of thy honor, everlasting through the years.
West Virginia University will go on because the countless students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends know something that Bob Huggins has failed to realize—it is greater than one person.