The Times West Virginian

WVU Sports

July 28, 2010

HERTZEL COLUMN: Huggins accident fires up rumor mill

By Bob Hertzel For the Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN — What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, and so it is that Bob Huggins remains in Sin City yet another day.

As W.C. Fields once said, all things considered, he’d rather be in Philadelphia.

And, if you are too young to know who W.C. Fields is, you probably belong in Philadelphia.

Almost before Huggins hit the floor three days ago, with a short detour to bounce off the coffee table in his hotel room, those who were cold of heart were shooting zingers across the Internet, proving once again that anyone who says he feels someone else’s pain knows not what he says.

Certainly, the footnotes on Huggins’ resume and the location of the incident, being Las Vegas, led many to believe that the West Virginia basketball coach may not have been himself when the accident occurred.

He has been known to quench his thirst on occasion, but since it is with an adult beverage, he qualifies to indulge.

But as the reports came out on Huggins’ injuries, whether or not he had tasted the nectar of the gods matters not, for there should be room in everyone’s heart — even if he happens to be a fan of the Pittsburgh Panthers to the north — for compassion.

When the accident was first reported, it was said Huggins had broken four ribs. Now I don’t know about you, but anyone who has suffered so much as a bruised rib, let alone a broken one, understands the discomfort that is involved.

A broken rib turns breathing into an ordeal, and when you consider that the average human being takes between 18,000 and 30,000 breaths a day you realize just what kind of injury this is.

One can only guess the mathematical pain progression for each additional rib that is broken, but suffice it to say that perhaps Huggins really would rather be in Philadelphia.

Hospital stays, of course, are supposed to make one improve but since Huggins has been put into the hospital, the estimate now is that he has broken seven ribs. That comes from Huggins’ assistant Billy Hahn via ESPN.

Perhaps he should get out of that hospital as soon as he can, before they find that every bone in his body has been broken.

It is no wonder Huggins remains hospitalized, however, as the pain would certainly be almost as unbearable having broken ribs “three through nine,” according to Hahn, as was the pain he suffered when losing to Duke in the national semifinal.

That was a different kind of pain, of course, more like a broken heart for both his team and his player, Da’Sean Butler, to whose aid Huggins came when Butler tore the insides of his knee while driving to the basket.

At that time Huggins captured the hearts of the nation as he bent over Butler, cradling him in his arms, telling him he had nothing to apologize for and trying to console him, much, we suspect, as his brother, Larry, is doing for him at this moment.

The problem Huggins faces is that there really isn’t a whole lot you can do for broken ribs. It isn’t like a broken leg, where they put it in a cast to immobilize it, give you some pain pills and a pair of crutches and say come back in a month and we’ll change the cast.

You can’t split it or put in a sling, and man you hope the guy sitting next to you on the flight home doesn’t start telling you any side-splitting jokes that come complete with an elbow poking into your ribs as he says, “Do you get it, huh?”

Now it is true that Huggins has had a three-year run of bad luck during the off-seasons in West Virginia, falling on a tarmac in Charlotte while attending a fundraiser and winding up in the hospital three years ago in May, showing up at his own basketball camp last year in June looking like a big panda with a pair of black eyes, one swollen almost completely shut, and now this mishap in Vegas.

May, June, July ... may we suggest that Huggs take extra care next August, once he recovers from this.

The latest word out of Las Vegas is there is no word yet when Huggins will be released from the hospital, although Huggins did inform sports information’s Bryan Messerly that he was doing well on Sunday.

This can’t, of course, be of any help to his recruiting, but at present that should not be entering into his thinking, for the first thing he has to do is nurse himself back to health. He can do that knowing, at least, that we all back home wish him well and offer only one piece of advice:

Watch that first step. It’s a doozy.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

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