Robert Danan Hughes (born December 11, 1970) is a former
American football wide receiver who played in the
National Football League. Hughes is a football analyst and commentates the weekly Missouri Valley Football Conference Game of the Week.
High School Athletics
Danan played as a wide receiver for Bayonne High School in NJ from 1984-1988.
College career
Hughes spent his
collegiate football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
career playing wide receiver for the
University of Iowa from 1989 to 1992. After
redshirting during the 1988 season, Hughes set a team record for freshman receiving yards with 471 yards on 28
receptions in 1989. That team record stood until the 2006 season when freshman Dominique Douglas passed Hughes to become Iowa’s all-time freshman receiving leader. Hughes ranks 3rd on Iowa’s all-time career receiving list, behind only
Derrell Johnson-Koulianos with 168 receptions for 2544 career yards and
Tim Dwight, with 146 receptions for 2,216 career yards. His 21 career
touchdown receptions are tied with Dwight for second most in team history behind Marvin McNutt.
Hughes, along with
quarterback Matt Rodgers and the running tandem of
Nick Bell and Tony Stewart, helped lead the Hawkeyes back to the
1991 Rose Bowl where Iowa lost to
Washington 46-34. Iowa also was invited to the
1991 Holiday Bowl
The 1991 Holiday Bowl was a college football bowl game played December 30, 1991, in San Diego, California. It was part of the 1991 NCAA Division I-A football season. It featured the seventh ranked Iowa Hawkeyes, and the unranked BYU Cougars. ...
the next season in Danan’s junior year and played
BYU to a 13-13 tie. On November 23, 1991, during the final game of the regular season, Hughes was on the receiving end of one of Matt Rodger’s 3 touchdown passes against
Minnesota in the classic “Snow Game”. Danan celebrated by making a
snow angel in the south
end zone in Iowa's 23-8 victory which gave legendary coach
Hayden Fry his 100th victory at Iowa. Hughes admitted in an interview on 1600 KGYM's
Balbinot and Brommelkamp radio show in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Sept. 27, 2011 the celebration was premeditated.
Danan Hughes also played
outfield for the
Hawkeye baseball team and was one of the best two-sport athletes in Iowa history. Hughes was drafted in the 3rd round of the
1992 amateur baseball draft by the
Milwaukee Brewers
The Milwaukee Brewers are an American professional baseball team based in Milwaukee. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) National League Central, Central division. The Brewers are named for t ...
. Only two Hawkeye baseball players have been drafted higher since 1992.
Professional career
Danan played minor league baseball for the 1992 and 1993 seasons in the Pioneer League for the
Helena Brewers.
He decided to make football his full-time profession after college when the
Kansas City Chiefs selected him in the 7th round of the
1993 NFL Draft
The 1993 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 25–26, 1993, at the Marriot Ma ...
.
Hughes played for the Chiefs from 1993 to 1998 as a
wide receiver and
special teams player.
Broadcasting career
Since 2008, Hughes has also served as a college football and college baseball analyst for the
Big Ten Network
Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American sports network based in Chicago, Illinois. The channel is dedicated to coverage of collegiate sports sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference, including live and recorded event telecasts, news, analysis programs, ...
.
On July 17, 2020 it was announced Danan would be joining the Kansas City Chiefs broadcasting team.
References
External links
Danan Hughes - Hawkeye Sports News
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Danan
1970 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Bayonne, New Jersey
Baseball players from New Jersey
Bayonne High School alumni
Players of American football from New Jersey
American football wide receivers
Iowa Hawkeyes football players
Iowa Hawkeyes baseball players
Helena Brewers players
Kansas City Chiefs players