BATON ROUGE — Rick Huckabay, a former assistant coach on the NCAA Final Four team of 1981 and successful head coach both on the high school level in Louisiana and on the collegiate level at Marshall, passed away Friday morning of cancer.
Huckabay was in his first year as assistant principal and head basketball coach at Simsboro High School in North Louisiana at the time of his death.
The 60-year-old Huckabay served four seasons at LSU as assistant coach, from 1980 to 1983, one of the more successful time periods at LSU as the Tigers won an SEC Tournament championship in 1980 and won the SEC title with a 17-1 record and advanced through to the NCAA appearance with a 31-5 record, including a 26-game winning streak.
Before joining LSU, he was a highly successful Louisiana high school basketball coach for 12 years prior, winning over 85 percent of his games as head coach at Rapides and Redemptorist of Baton Rouge. He won two state titles at Redemptorist and was named high school head coach of the year on three occasions in the state of Louisiana.
Huckabay, a graduate of Louisiana Tech, was named the head coach at Marshall after leaving LSU and was the head coach there for six years, until 1989. His teams won four Southern Conference championships and advanced to the NCAA Tournament three times and the NIT once with an overall record of 125-59 which included marks of 25-6 twice in 1984 and 1987.
Visitation for Huckabay will take place Saturday from 5-8 p.m. and from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Sunday at the John Kramer and Sons Funeral Home at 2905 Masonic Drive in Alexandria. The funeral service is scheduled for 2 p.m. Sunday at Our Lady of Prompt Succor Catholic Church in Alexandria.
Huckabay is survived by his wife, Mary Ann Spears Huckabay of Ruston; two sons, Richard David “Rickey” Huckabay, Jr., and, Andrew Joseph “Andy” Huckabay, both of Nashville, Tenn., and, four step-children, Rose Marie French of Nashville, Bill Franklin French of Portland, Ore., Laura Ann French of Dallas and Emily Teresa French of Ruston. Huckabay is also survived by a sister, Synda Dayle Dillard of Frierson, La.