Hall of Fame
Huff’s odyssey to the SID profession had included a year at Marquette University before he accepted a job working at a daily newspaper in Du Quoin, Ill., where he spent 13 years doing everything from writing sports to helping typeset and deliver the paper. All of that changed in the late spring of 1960, when he began the first of two stints a few miles away with the athletics department at SIU.
For the next 11 years, he followed teams to the baseball College World Series and national championships, as well as the 1967 NIT crown (when he worked with the legendary star Walt Frazier). His career in sports took another turn in 1972, when he left SIU and became the general manager of the Du Quoin State Fair. There, he was in charge of the Hambletonian — the most famous harness race for horses in America.
In 1977, a new SIU athletics director named Gale Sayers contacted Huff about returning to work with the Salukis, and Huff accepted a position as Sayers’ only assistant athletics director. Twenty-four years later, he retired after a total of 35 years in the SID profession, during which time he and Ann annually attended the summer workshop. He received CoSIDA’s Lifetime Achievement Award upon his retirement in 2001.
When Fred received the Missouri Valley Conference’s Hall of Fame award in 2010, more than 40 former assistants and student workers who had spent time at SIU returned to honor him.
Since retiring, he has written a 416-page “coffee table” book on the history of SIU athletics. He also writes a weekly column for a chain of six daily newspapers in southern Illinois and a column for a chain of 16 weekly papers in the area about - obviously - SIU and Missouri Valley Conference athletics.
Besides the MVC Hall of Fame, he is a member of the SIU Hall of Fame, was named Du Quoin’s “Citizen of the Year” in 2003, and is finishing a two-year term as the city’s Chamber of Commerce president.