| Wins against Kentucky - 0 | Losses against Kentucky - 1 |
Alma Mater: Appalachian State [1963]
Date Born: April 2, 1940
Date Died: June 26, 2007
Overall Record: 310-270 [20 Seasons]

Obituary - Roanoke (VA) Times (June 27, 2007)

Former Tech hoops coach Hussey dies

The longtime assistant for Bill Foster spent two years leading the Hokies.

By Mark Berman

Bobby Hussey led Davidson to the NCAA tournament in 1986, but at Virginia Tech, he won just 23 games in two seasons.

Bobby Hussey always wanted to have a VCR in his hotel room so he could watch game tape.

His attention to detail as a Virginia Tech assistant men's basketball coach helped the Hokies win the NIT in 1995 and make the NCAA tournament in 1996. He was rewarded with Tech's head coaching job and steered the Hokies for two seasons.

"He was the smartest guy I've ever met in terms of basketball," said William Fleming girls' basketball coach Troy Manns, who played for the Hokies when Hussey was a Tech assistant. "We never went into a game not knowing what the other team was going to do."

One day after suffering a massive stroke, Hussey died Tuesday at a Charlotte, N.C., hospital at the age of 67.

Hussey was 310-270 in 20 years as head coach, including stops at Belmont Abbey and Davidson. The Asheboro, N.C., native steered Davidson to the 1986 NCAA tournament.

Hussey was a Tech assistant under Bill Foster from 1991-97 before taking the Hokies' reins. He went 23-32 before being fired.

"He was a basketball workaholic," Foster said. "He wasn't a golfer; he wasn't a fisherman. Basketball, he was really addicted."

After suffering a minor stroke in 2003, Hussey spent the next three years putting on clinics and serving as a volunteer coach at Charlotte area high schools. But he developed Lewy body dementia, so last July, his family put him in a Charlotte facility that cares for people with memory loss. He suffered a massive stroke at that facility Monday and was transferred to Carolinas Medical Center.

Hussey is survived by Sandra, his wife of 46 years, and their two sons.

"He's always been my idol," said their son, Greg Hussey.

Game preparation, scouting and developing players were Hussey's strong suits.

"That's where he was at his best and really where he was happiest, was either with a remote in his hand, watching film, or on the court, teaching," said James Madison coach Dean Keener, who played for Hussey at Davidson and coached under Foster and Hussey at Tech. "You'd go into his office late at night and ... he may be half asleep, but he was watching film."

Hussey was a basketball junkie, said ex-Tech assistant Robert Lineburg.

"I roomed with him one night [before] we played at William and Mary and it was 3 o'clock in the morning when I went to bed and Bobby was still watching tape," said Lineburg, who coached with Hussey on Foster's staff. "Just to talk basketball with him, it was like a clinic every day."

Hussey was an assistant on the Tech team that went 25-10 in 1994-95, when the Hokies beat Marquette at Madison Square Garden to win the NIT. They went 23-6 the following season, when they made the NCAA tournament for the first time in 10 years.

"He was tough as nails on the court, but off the court he was probably one of the easiest people to talk to," Manns said. "He was demanding, because he knew how things were supposed to go."

"He was a good floor coach, a real good teacher of fundamentals," Foster said. "Sometimes he'd work them harder than they wanted to be worked, but in the end they appreciated it."

In September 1996, Tech announced that Foster would retire at the end of the 1996-97 season and be replaced by Hussey. Foster had wanted his longtime friend to succeed him. Dave Braine, then the athletic director, had thought so much of Hussey that he received permission from Tech to skip a coaching search and simply promote Hussey.

"I feel like I just won the lottery,'' Hussey said at that 1996 news conference. "At times, I really wondered if I'd ever get another chance at being a head coach. To get the job at Virginia Tech is special."

Hussey was as detail-oriented as a head coach as he was as an assistant.

"When he took over as head coach, you knew that you'd better be prepared because he'd watch as much film on every opponent that the assistant coach that had that particular [scouting assignment] would watch," said Scott Davis, a Tech assistant under Foster and Hussey.

Braine's successor, Jim Weaver, fired Hussey in 1999 and replaced him with Ricky Stokes. At the time, Weaver cited dwindling attendance as one of the reasons for his decision. Tech averaged 4,040 fans in Hussey's final season, at the time a record low for Cassell Coliseum, although it got worse during the Stokes era.

Hussey was fired 18 days after his second straight losing season; Weaver waited until after the women's basketball team lost in the NCAA tournament before giving him the news. Hussey said at the time he was "totally blindsided" by the firing, which he described as "very cold" and being handled in a "non-professional way."

Hussey returned to coaching as a Clemson assistant under Larry Shyatt from 2000-03.

Hussey loved gardening and also liked working at the family's farm.

"That was his way of balancing the stress and pressure-packed life of being a college coach," Sandra Hussey said. "He was not a person to sit still."

Hussey's funeral will be Friday in Denver, N.C.

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