It may have been Huggins’ last chunk but it was certainly not his first. That came in 2002 at the Pittsburgh International Airport, when he keeled over in line for a soft pretzel at Auntie Anne’s. 

​“Mama! Mama!” said a young boy, hitting his mother on the arm and pointing at the doubled-over Huggins. “There’s a bag of Mayonnaise on the ground!”

Before I stumbled upon Officer Folino’s account of the night Bob Huggins blew a .21, I had not the slightest idea of what I’d wanted my gravestone to read. All I can say now is thank you, Officer Folino.

***

​“Now now sweetie, don’t you worry,” said the kind Midwestern woman to her son. “That’s just Huggins. He’s chunking it.” 

​The next chunk came two years later on July 4th, 2004. Huggins was pulled over in Fairfax, Ohio, with a brown-bagged Four Loko and a KitKat in his lap. 

​“Fine, officer,” said Huggins. “You got me this time.”

From that point on, Huggins vowed to stray from the limelight. And he was successful for a while… that is until February 20th, 2017, when Huggins chunked it on the hardwood in Morgantown. 

“Is that a tuna casserole on the court?” said one nosebleed-sitter to another. 

“No, man! It’s Huggins! His burger heart is giving out again!”

Before Huggins’ two final chunks, there came a moment of peace. On January 27, 2023, Charles Barkley attended the eleventh annual Bob Huggins Fish Fry. Together, Bob and Chuck set the first two strips of cod down into the fryer to a standing ovation of over 2,700+ Appalachian mountain folk. For a moment, the world believed the chunks were a thing of the past… 

May 8th, 2023. The day after the Cincinnati-Xavier crosstown rivalry game. Huggins is on The Stooge Report, a local Cincinnati radio station.

“Xavier fans, they’re a bunch of f-gs,” said Huggins. “Catholic f-gs.”

Huggins chunks it again. 

***

Huggins could not tell us how he got to Pittsburgh. Huggins told us he remembered stopping at a Burger King and had a receipt. Huggins fumbled around with five receipts that were not Burger King, but was finally able to produce one from Burger King. 

– Officer Elysa Folino. June 16th, 2023.