MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A former WVU assistant coach who spent a decade on the Mountaineer coaching staff has died.

Billy Hahn, who served as an assistant on head coach Bob Huggins’ staff from 2007-17, was 69. A WVU Athletics source confirmed his death Friday afternoon.

“Billy was a player’s coach and a very good communicator,” Huggins said in a statement posted to Twitter. “He had a great rapport with the players, and they all really enjoyed being around him.”

Hahn coached college basketball for more than four decades. Before WVU, he spent long stints at Ohio, where he was both an assistant and head coach, and at Maryland, where he served as an assistant for 12 years.

Though Hahn, who was born in Indiana, retired from coaching in 2017, he remained a fixture of the West Virginia basketball community. He formed relationships with current Mountaineer players and even shared his expertise with the Best Virginia alumni team as it embarked upon its first run in The Basketball Tournament.

Hahn was beloved by players and coaches alike, many of whom tweeted about him Friday upon learning of his death.

“Billy Hahn was one of a kind,” ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla said on Twitter. “He is the reason I became a college coach.”