Huggieville Relocates

Bob Huggins leaving K-State after just one season may be one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

It’s the athletic equivalent of serving your spouse with divorce papers in the middle of the honeymoon.

There are some Jayhawk backers that actually are troubled by the development. “It’s bad for the Big XII,” they cry.

Get over it.

All the talk in recent weeks about KU losing to the Bruins because the Big XII was a weak conference is just that: talk.

A supposedly weak conference had the national player of the year, two first team All-Americans and three teams in the Sweet 16. Regardless of the stature of the conference, the games you played in January and February make little difference when you go 14 for 33 on dunks and layups. KU lost because the shots didn’t fall, not because of a “weak” Big XII North.

That’s almost beside the point anyway.

K-State fans were quick to adopt a new sense of swagger this year. Huggy-bear promised to make their dreams a reality. Beating the Jayhawks was guaranteed.

Wildcat fans were living in Huggieville, which is like a 21st century hobo camp for a motley crew of one-and-done phenoms and shady timebombs given their third or fourth stab at success.
The Wildcat fans weren’t even that excited about the current year. “Just wait—“they would say with a smile, “two years or three years from now, we’ll be beating you guys regularly.”

How sweet it is, then, that the apple of Manhattan’s eye jets after just one season.

I thought it was interesting that the online community seemed to be ahead of the curve on breaking the news. Message boards were slammed with reports from sports fanatics with too much time on their hands, and details trickled in: the only reason he didn’t take the job six years ago was because of the president of West Virginia, who is now stepping down in a few weeks; the provost at K-State was trying to transfer to West Virginia as well; and, the kicker – some sleuthing at FlightTrack revealed that a private plane was heading from West Virginia to Manhattan, Kansas. Later that day, the online murmurs were confirmed around 2:20 central time as Bob Huggins made the announcement.

At the press conference, K-State’s distaste for Huggy Bear’s move was palpable. Maybe part of that had to do with the laughable buy-out Huggins had. West Virginia had to fork over just $100,000 for the rights to Huggins…compared to $2.5 million that Michigan paid for the rights to West Viriginia’s coach.

I could go on for days, but I’ll stop here…and drop this essay quicker than Huggy left K-State.
Actually, I’m going to scan ebay for a K-State “Welcome to Huggieville” shirt, or maybe one of those “blackout” shirts: there should be plenty that were only worn once.