Bob Huggins Has Hired Three Lawyers. Who Should WVU Believe?
Last month, Bob Huggins resigned as basketball coach at West Virginia.
Or maybe he didn’t.
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It depends on which of Huggins’ attorneys you ask.
David Campbell, an attorney for Huggins, wrote a letter to WVU president Gordon Gee on Friday saying that Huggins plans to return to active duties as coach. The letter contends that Huggins “never communicated his resignation” to anyone at WVU and that the university is wrongfully relying on a text sent by Huggins’ wife, June, to conclude that he quit. Campbell adds that WVU, which hired Josh Eilert as interim coach following Huggins’ (disputed) resignation, is in breach of Huggins’ contract by not honoring his continued employment and could soon face a lawsuit.
This unusual development follows Huggins’ arrest last month in Pittsburgh for driving under the influence. He failed field sobriety tests, and his breathalyzer result was nearly three times the legal limit in Pennsylvania. Huggins was already suspended by the school in May after he made anti-gay and anti-Catholic remarks on a radio show.
On June 17, Huggins wrote an open letter to “Mountaineer Nation.” Huggins explicitly noted he had “submitted a letter” to Gee and director of WVU athletics Wren Baker “informing them of my resignation and intention to retire as head men’s basketball coach at West Virginia University effective immediately.”
Huggins also noticeably referred to his relationship with WVU as one in the past. He wrote he “had the pleasure of coaching here,” structuring the sentence to signal he was finished coaching.
But Campbell contends the situation is not what it may seem.
He writes that the employment contract requires that Huggins send notice “in writing via registered or certified mail” to resign. Campbell insists Huggins, who sought rehabilitation after the DUI, never provided such notice, meaning he would not have completed the necessary procedure for quitting.
RELATED: How much revenue did WVU’s athletic department earn in 2021-22? Read more in Sportico‘s college athletics department financial database.
On Saturday, WVU general counsel Stephanie Taylor sent a letter to Campbell revealing that another attorney for Huggins, Bob Fitzsimmons, called her on Friday—the same day of Campbell’s letter— “to discuss the benefits to be provided under Mr. Huggins’ contract, as a result of his resignation and retirement.” She added that her conversation with Fitzsimmons referred to a plan where the school would pay Huggins deferred compensation and annual leave balance—“both of which,” Taylor stressed, “would not be currently owed” to Huggins if he hadn’t resigned.
Taylor also maintained the university did not rely on a text message from June Huggins, who would not have been able to quit a job held by her husband without his consent. Instead, Taylor said Huggins “clearly communicated his resignation and retirement to the University in writing via email” and did so through the counsel of still another attorney, James “Rocky” Gianola.
The “conflicting communications” from attorneys purporting to represent Huggins, Taylor explained to Campbell, forces the school to make a decision between “working collaboratively” with Fitzsimmons on how Huggins will be paid or “respond to meritless demand letters and possible frivolous litigation brought forth by you.”
If Huggins has retained attorneys who are sending contradictory messages to WVU, he’d have a difficult time convincing a judge the school has wronged him. If Huggins has terminated one (or two or three) of those attorneys, he needs to notify WVU of the identity of which attorney actually represents him.
Huggins was the highest-paid public employee in the state of West Virginia in 2022, earning $4.26 million. The state’s governor, Jim Justice, earned $150,000.
