Robert Hughes Sr. (born May 15, 1928) is a retired American

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

coach Coach may refer to: Guidance/instruction * Coach (sport), a director of athletes' training and activities * Coaching, the practice of guiding an individual through a process ** Acting coach, a teacher who trains performers Transportation * Co ...

. Hughes was the United States' all-time winningest high school basketball coach from February 11, 2003 to December 7, 2010, and is currently the winningest boys high school basketball coach in the United States with 1,333 wins. He was passed in wins by

Leta Andrews Leta Mae Rains Andrews (born July 7, 1937) is a retired American high school basketball coach who holds the record for the most wins by a high school basketball coach. Biography Andrews was born near Granbury and graduated from Granbury High Sc ...

Granbury High School Granbury High School is a public high school located in the city of Granbury, Texas, United States and classified as a 5A school by the University Interscholastic League (UIL). It is part of the Granbury Independent School District which serves s ...

Granbury, Texas Granbury is a city in and the county seat of Hood County, Texas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city's population was 10,958, and it is the principal city of the Granbury micropolitan statistical area. Granbury is named after Confede ...

, who compiled a national record 1,416 career victories in girls high school basketball before retiring in 2014.

Biography

Hughes joined the Army after high school. At 6'6" he was recruited for a special unit that just played basketball; it was the first integrated team Hughes ever played on. When he left the Army,

Texas Southern University Texas Southern University (Texas Southern or TSU) is a public historically black university in Houston, Texas. The university is one of the largest and most comprehensive historically black college or universities in the USA with nearly 10,00 ...

offered him a basketball scholarship. Playing for coach Edward H. Adams, Hughes was an All-American at Southern. He started playing for the barnstorming

Harlem Magicians Harlem Magicians was a basketball enterprise founded in 1953 by Lon Varnell through his Varnell Enterprises, that was similar in fashion and activities to the famous exhibition basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters. The full name of the barnsto ...

in 1954, and was selected by the Boston Celtics as a supplemental draft pick in 1955 NBA Draft, but he did not make the team. Hughes returned to the Magicians in 1955, and met his wife, Jacquelyne Johnson, while playing in a tournament in Memphis, but a ruptured Achilles tendon later that season forced him to give up playing basketball. He returned home to Oklahoma and attended the University of Tulsa, graduating in 1957.

Coaching career

Hughes was hired by Douglas Aircraft as a mechanic after graduating from Tulsa, and worked there until his former coach at Texas Southern called to ask if Hughes had ever considered coaching. Hughes wasn’t initially interested, but Adams persisted and Hughes was hired at I. M. Terrell High School, in Fort Worth,

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

(an all-black high school) during

segregation Segregation may refer to: Separation of people * Geographical segregation, rates of two or more populations which are not homogenous throughout a defined space * School segregation * Housing segregation * Racial segregation, separation of humans ...

. Hughes led Terrell to three PVIL state championships and one runner up in the five years from 1963 to 1967. After segregation ended and I.M. Terrell was shut down in 1973, Hughes began coaching at Dunbar High School in the

Fort Worth Independent School District A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

. At Dunbar, Hughes won two state titles, finished as state runner-up three times, and took the team to the final four 12 times between 1977 and 2003, including ten final fours in the 17-year run between 1977 and 1993. In 32 seasons at Dunbar, Hughes only ever had one assistant coach, Leondas Rambo, who retired with Hughes in 2005. Between Terrell and Dunbar combined, Hughes won five state basketball titles, and retired in 2005 as the all-time winningest high school basketball coach, passing

Morgan Wootten Morgan Bayard Wootten (April 21, 1931January 21, 2020) was an American high school basketball coach for 46 seasons at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland. He led the Stags to five national championships and 33 Washington Cathol ...

in 2003. "If you can't work hard and put out the best, you probably need to go home to your mama," Hughes was known for telling his players.

Halls of fame and awards

One of Hughes' greatest achievements was his election to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on March 31, 2017. Additional halls of fame include: Texas Basketball Hall of Fame (1993), High School Basketball Hall of Fame (2003), and the Texas Black Sports Hall of Fame (2013). Hughes was selected as the NHSCA National High School Coach of the Year in 2003, and received the Morgan Wootten Lifetime Achievement Award by the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010.

Personal life

Hughes' wife of 57 years, Jacquelyne Sue Johnson Hughes, died July 1, 2014. Hughes' son, Robert Hughes Jr., took over head coaching duties at Dunbar after Hughes Sr. retired in 2005, and is the current coach at Dunbar High School. He has two daughters. One, Carlye J. Hughes, was ordained the 11th Episcopal Bishop of Newark in September 2018. Another daughter, Robin L. Hughes, was named dean of

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) is a public university in Edwardsville, Illinois. SIUE was established in 1957 as an extension of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.Butler 1976, p. 18 It is the younger of the two major inst ...

School of Education, Health and Human Behavior in July 2019. Hughes resides in the Stop Six neighborhood of southeast Fort Worth.

Popular culture

In anticipation of Hughes' induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, filmmaker and former Dunbar basketball player, Mike Byars created a feature length documentary ''5700 Ramey Ave: The Story of Robert Hughes'' to chronicle Hughes' career.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Robert 1928 births Living people American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Texas Boston Celtics draft picks High school basketball coaches in the United States Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees People from Bristow, Oklahoma Basketball players from Fort Worth, Texas Texas Southern Tigers men's basketball players