Post by rainman on Nov 3, 2007 7:04:21 GMT -5
Billy Hahn glad to be back in coaching with Huggins
By Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston Daily Mail
MORGANTOWN— Billy Hahn is back in almost heaven, in more ways than one.
He prefers that to a basketball coaching purgatory, or another hellish alternative — which the last three years often were for him.
“I can’t begin to tell you how much I missed coaching,” said Hahn, a hoops lifer if there ever were one. “I tell every young coach I see, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’”
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Hahn thinks he’s the former. If he also weren’t the latter, he wouldn’t be the former.
Nor would he be back in college hoops, as one of Bob Huggins’ assistants at West Virginia.
“One of the beautiful things about Billy is he gets excited, and then he tends to talk fast and loud,” Huggins said. “What Billy is, first and foremost, is a really good basketball coach.”
Hahn is making $115,000 annually at WVU, but truth be told, he’d probably help Huggins for nothing.
In the summer of 2004, Hahn was forced to resign as head coach at LaSalle following sexual assault charges against three of his players by a member of the Explorers’ women’s team and a camp counselor. The following firestorm took out Hahn and the women’s coach, John Miller.
Acquittals and dropped charges eventually came of the incident. Media reports from Philadelphia have said Hahn did nothing wrong except respect the wishes of one of the women in the incident and originally keep it quiet.
Hahn has been to a Final Four on Maryland’s staff in 2001. The next year, after he’d moved to LaSalle, Terps Coach Gary Williams presented Hahn an NCAA championship ring because Hahn had — significantly — helped build the program.
Then came the last three seasons, and Hahn was on the sidelines in a way that devastated him.
He worked as a director for the New Jersey-rooted Hoop Group scouting and camp service. He kept his hand in the college game by accepting invitations from coaching pals to attend practices of Big Five programs in Philly.
“It was a great support system, those guys embracing me,” Hahn said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I stayed visible. I went to high school games. I figured somewhere, somehow, some place, I’d get back. I missed it ... missed it desperately.”
He was offered jobs in previous years by four head coaches — but in each case his hiring was nixed by suits above those basketball staffs.
Then, Huggins and WVU’s administration gave Hahn a ticket back into an arena he first entered as a rookie assistant for Rich Meckfessel at Morris Harvey back in 1975-76.
“You just don’t know how good something is until you don’t have it anymore,” said Hahn, 54, sitting amidst the renovation construction of the Mountaineer basketball offices in the WVU Coliseum. “You get so wrapped up in what we do, the rat race, that you don’t take time.”
Hahn paused to consider how he has become a basketball lifer, recruited and then overrecruited (John Lucas, Mo Howard) by Lefty Driesell, and now on his seventh coaching stop over more than three decades.
He’s a steely-eyed guy who was part of a team that maybe was the best to never play in the NCAA Tournament. Hahn played seven minutes as Maryland lost to N.C. State 103-100 in the 1974 ACC Tournament final when only one team per conference went to the NCAA.
“To be where basketball has taken me,” Hahn said, choking back his emotions, “what it’s done for me in my life ... I guess I’d still be back on the farm in Indiana, doing that, because that’s where I came from.
“I just have so much respect for the game. Honestly, if I’d had to, I don’t know what else I’d do. I owe everything to Bob Huggins and the WVU administration. I’m so grateful to all of the people involved who helped make this happen. It took some courage on their part to take a stand, and they did.
“I’ve always been a very passionate guy. There’s a lot of gas left in my tank. And I’m here for one reason -- to help Bob Huggins and West Virginia win a national title. Some people say it can’t happen here. Tell me a reason why we can’t ... The passion of fans in this state for their sports, for WVU football and basketball ... It’s as passionate as any place I’ve been.”
Hahn got a taste of that more than three decades ago in West Virginia’s capital city.
“I was a young whippersnapper back then in Charleston,” said Hahn, whose ability to find talent in unsung prospects has been lauded for years. “I thought I knew everything. I’d played in the big ACC (as a 5-foot-10 Maryland guard, mostly a backup) and this was little Morris Harvey College.
“One thing I noticed in the fall before basketball, even back then, was how crazy everybody was for WVU football and basketball. They’d plan their Saturdays around listening to games or watching them, or going to Morgantown.”
Huggins and Hahn first met back in the early ’70s, when the future WVU head coach took a recruiting visit to Maryland as an Ohio schoolboy. Hahn was the Terp player hosting Huggins.
“I always told Bob I was worried that he was going to take my job,” Hahn said, smiling.
Huggins went to Ohio University, then transferred to WVU to finish his playing career. The career of the men with the same initials continued to intertwine.
When Hahn was head coach at Ohio U., Akron Coach Huggins played the Bobcats. Hahn also landed a couple of LaSalle road dates against Huggins’ Bearcats at Cincinnati.
“It’s really amazing how everything in life can work,” Hahn said. “I never thought I’d have a chance to work with Bob, to work for him. When I was a head coach, I always wanted to play Huggs, because you have to prepare a certain way that makes you better. It made our teams tougher.
“He’s always made me feel comfortable and confident. I think he’s respected me, as I have him, because we played the game similar, hard-nosed, tough, in your face. That was his personality as a player. Mine, too.
“I’m going to work my rear off for Bob Huggins. I’m laying it on the line for him, because I know what he’s done for me ... I don’t need to be a head coach. I need to be a coach. I’m fine where I am and with what I’m doing.”
If one wants to consider what Hahn’s presence and contacts might mean to the Mountaineers, consider that since he left his alma mater’s staff after a dozen years, the Terps’ program hasn’t been quite as strong.
Hahn, Jimmy Patsos (Loyola, Md., head coach) and Wheeling native Dave Dickerson (Tulane head coach) were a formidable staff for Williams.
Hahn has coached 19 NBA players, and his knack for finding talent in many players underrated by others (like former 160-pound Terp star guard Juan Dixon) is only one of his calling cards. Huggins said he appreciates Hahn because former players and coaches with whom the assistant has worked remain close to Hahn.
Although it’s a long way from a tough 6-20 coaching indoctrination for Hahn on the Morris Harvey sideline, Hahn and Meckfessel have breakfast or lunch together every year during the coaches’ convention at the NCAA Final Four.
“I still talk to Rich at least about once a month,” Hahn said. “When somebody gives you a start, you don’t forget where you came from. No way I could have ever thought I’d be back in West Virginia coaching, but all I’ve ever wanted to do since I became a coach is to coach.
“I can look in the mirror; I did nothing wrong. I’m a positive guy, always have been. I told Kathi (his wife) I’d get back. I’m not sure she was so sure. I had to get back. It’s what I know, college basketball, what I do.”
By Jack Bogaczyk
Charleston Daily Mail
MORGANTOWN— Billy Hahn is back in almost heaven, in more ways than one.
He prefers that to a basketball coaching purgatory, or another hellish alternative — which the last three years often were for him.
“I can’t begin to tell you how much I missed coaching,” said Hahn, a hoops lifer if there ever were one. “I tell every young coach I see, ‘You don’t know how lucky you are.’”
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Hahn thinks he’s the former. If he also weren’t the latter, he wouldn’t be the former.
Nor would he be back in college hoops, as one of Bob Huggins’ assistants at West Virginia.
“One of the beautiful things about Billy is he gets excited, and then he tends to talk fast and loud,” Huggins said. “What Billy is, first and foremost, is a really good basketball coach.”
Hahn is making $115,000 annually at WVU, but truth be told, he’d probably help Huggins for nothing.
In the summer of 2004, Hahn was forced to resign as head coach at LaSalle following sexual assault charges against three of his players by a member of the Explorers’ women’s team and a camp counselor. The following firestorm took out Hahn and the women’s coach, John Miller.
Acquittals and dropped charges eventually came of the incident. Media reports from Philadelphia have said Hahn did nothing wrong except respect the wishes of one of the women in the incident and originally keep it quiet.
Hahn has been to a Final Four on Maryland’s staff in 2001. The next year, after he’d moved to LaSalle, Terps Coach Gary Williams presented Hahn an NCAA championship ring because Hahn had — significantly — helped build the program.
Then came the last three seasons, and Hahn was on the sidelines in a way that devastated him.
He worked as a director for the New Jersey-rooted Hoop Group scouting and camp service. He kept his hand in the college game by accepting invitations from coaching pals to attend practices of Big Five programs in Philly.
“It was a great support system, those guys embracing me,” Hahn said. “I didn’t do anything wrong. I stayed visible. I went to high school games. I figured somewhere, somehow, some place, I’d get back. I missed it ... missed it desperately.”
He was offered jobs in previous years by four head coaches — but in each case his hiring was nixed by suits above those basketball staffs.
Then, Huggins and WVU’s administration gave Hahn a ticket back into an arena he first entered as a rookie assistant for Rich Meckfessel at Morris Harvey back in 1975-76.
“You just don’t know how good something is until you don’t have it anymore,” said Hahn, 54, sitting amidst the renovation construction of the Mountaineer basketball offices in the WVU Coliseum. “You get so wrapped up in what we do, the rat race, that you don’t take time.”
Hahn paused to consider how he has become a basketball lifer, recruited and then overrecruited (John Lucas, Mo Howard) by Lefty Driesell, and now on his seventh coaching stop over more than three decades.
He’s a steely-eyed guy who was part of a team that maybe was the best to never play in the NCAA Tournament. Hahn played seven minutes as Maryland lost to N.C. State 103-100 in the 1974 ACC Tournament final when only one team per conference went to the NCAA.
“To be where basketball has taken me,” Hahn said, choking back his emotions, “what it’s done for me in my life ... I guess I’d still be back on the farm in Indiana, doing that, because that’s where I came from.
“I just have so much respect for the game. Honestly, if I’d had to, I don’t know what else I’d do. I owe everything to Bob Huggins and the WVU administration. I’m so grateful to all of the people involved who helped make this happen. It took some courage on their part to take a stand, and they did.
“I’ve always been a very passionate guy. There’s a lot of gas left in my tank. And I’m here for one reason -- to help Bob Huggins and West Virginia win a national title. Some people say it can’t happen here. Tell me a reason why we can’t ... The passion of fans in this state for their sports, for WVU football and basketball ... It’s as passionate as any place I’ve been.”
Hahn got a taste of that more than three decades ago in West Virginia’s capital city.
“I was a young whippersnapper back then in Charleston,” said Hahn, whose ability to find talent in unsung prospects has been lauded for years. “I thought I knew everything. I’d played in the big ACC (as a 5-foot-10 Maryland guard, mostly a backup) and this was little Morris Harvey College.
“One thing I noticed in the fall before basketball, even back then, was how crazy everybody was for WVU football and basketball. They’d plan their Saturdays around listening to games or watching them, or going to Morgantown.”
Huggins and Hahn first met back in the early ’70s, when the future WVU head coach took a recruiting visit to Maryland as an Ohio schoolboy. Hahn was the Terp player hosting Huggins.
“I always told Bob I was worried that he was going to take my job,” Hahn said, smiling.
Huggins went to Ohio University, then transferred to WVU to finish his playing career. The career of the men with the same initials continued to intertwine.
When Hahn was head coach at Ohio U., Akron Coach Huggins played the Bobcats. Hahn also landed a couple of LaSalle road dates against Huggins’ Bearcats at Cincinnati.
“It’s really amazing how everything in life can work,” Hahn said. “I never thought I’d have a chance to work with Bob, to work for him. When I was a head coach, I always wanted to play Huggs, because you have to prepare a certain way that makes you better. It made our teams tougher.
“He’s always made me feel comfortable and confident. I think he’s respected me, as I have him, because we played the game similar, hard-nosed, tough, in your face. That was his personality as a player. Mine, too.
“I’m going to work my rear off for Bob Huggins. I’m laying it on the line for him, because I know what he’s done for me ... I don’t need to be a head coach. I need to be a coach. I’m fine where I am and with what I’m doing.”
If one wants to consider what Hahn’s presence and contacts might mean to the Mountaineers, consider that since he left his alma mater’s staff after a dozen years, the Terps’ program hasn’t been quite as strong.
Hahn, Jimmy Patsos (Loyola, Md., head coach) and Wheeling native Dave Dickerson (Tulane head coach) were a formidable staff for Williams.
Hahn has coached 19 NBA players, and his knack for finding talent in many players underrated by others (like former 160-pound Terp star guard Juan Dixon) is only one of his calling cards. Huggins said he appreciates Hahn because former players and coaches with whom the assistant has worked remain close to Hahn.
Although it’s a long way from a tough 6-20 coaching indoctrination for Hahn on the Morris Harvey sideline, Hahn and Meckfessel have breakfast or lunch together every year during the coaches’ convention at the NCAA Final Four.
“I still talk to Rich at least about once a month,” Hahn said. “When somebody gives you a start, you don’t forget where you came from. No way I could have ever thought I’d be back in West Virginia coaching, but all I’ve ever wanted to do since I became a coach is to coach.
“I can look in the mirror; I did nothing wrong. I’m a positive guy, always have been. I told Kathi (his wife) I’d get back. I’m not sure she was so sure. I had to get back. It’s what I know, college basketball, what I do.”
