WVU coach suspended over homophobic slur

West Virginia University announced a three-game suspension and $1 million pay cut for men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins yesterday, two days after he repeatedly called members of another team a homophobic slur on a live radio program. 

As part of his punishment, the Hall of Fame coach will also have his contract amended from a multiyear agreement to a year-by-year one that comes up for renewal next April. He’s also agreed to make a “voluntary” donation to Xavier University, whose players were at the receiving end of his antigay invectives. 

In a joint statement, WVU president E. Gordon Gee and athletics director Wren Baker said Huggins’s “derogatory and offensive language” was “inexcusable.”

“It was a moment that unfairly and inappropriately hurt many people and has tarnished West Virginia University,” they wrote. “We have made it explicitly clear to Coach Huggins that any incidents of similar derogatory and offensive language will result in immediate termination.”

According to the statement, Huggins will also be required to meet with leaders at WVU’s LGBTQ+ center and advocates across the state in order to “better understand the mental health crisis facing our college students, particularly those in marginalized communities.”

Huggins, who apologized Monday, released another statement yesterday in which he said he was “keenly aware of the pain I have caused.” 

“Over the past 48 hours, I have reflected on the awful words that I shared,” Huggins wrote. “I have no excuse for the language I used, and I take full responsibility. I will abide with the actions outlined by the University and Athletics leadership to learn from this incident.”