Legendary Fort Worth basketball coach Robert Hughes, known as Mayor of Stop Six, dies

At a table reserved for the likes of Van Cliburn, Dan Jenkins, Opal Lee and a few other famous Fort Worthians, Robert Hughes would have stood out not just because of his stature or demeanor but because of the respect that he commanded.

You didn’t have to know Robert Hughes to know that you didn’t mess with Robert Hughes.

The man known as Coach Hughes is one of the most significant figures in the history of Fort Worth. Of basketball.

On the same day basketball lost one of its pioneers in Jerry West , it also lost Coach Hughes. Both are members of the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Hughes, who coached two Fort Worth high schools to five state championships in boys basketball, both in the segregated and integrated eras, and who won more games than any other basketball coach in the country, died on Tuesday in Fort Worth. He was 96.

Known as the Mayor of Stop Six for the neighborhood around Dunbar, where he won two of his state championships, Hughes had been in failing health for the last several years and needed nearly daily assistance, according to close friends.

“There were a handful of beacon of lights in the Stop Six neighborhood, and he was the tippy top of the list,” former Dunbar player Sheldon Tate said Tuesday in a phone interview. Tate played at Dunbar from 1998 to 2001. He now is married with four children, recently earned a Ph.D. from TCU and works at George Mason University.

“There were countless young men who would have been lost to other circumstances had it not been for him. He found a way to channel that in a positive direction, and provide structure. The guy was a safe haven of positivity. He was a person you could trust your children with.

“I would not be the man I am had it not been for his influence. He is everything. He meant so much to so many.”

Hughes won 1,333 games with 264 losses.

Hughes had one losing season in 47 years, retiring in 2005 at 76 as a member of the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, the National High School Hall of Fame, the Texas High School Basketball Hall of Fame, the Southwestern Athletic Conference Hall of Fame and the Texas Southern Hall of Fame.

He was finally inducted in the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 2017. Watching Hughes stand there with the other inductees, all wearing their Hall of Fame orange jackets, was a source of immense pride not just for the coach but for everyone who ever dealt with the man.

Players. Coaches. Teammates. Referees. Opposing coaches. Opposing players.

Every bit of that honor was earned.

“Being from Stop Six, he was our guy. He was something we could clench,” said one of his former players, Mike Byars who directed and produced a documentary on Hughes’ life. Byars played for Hughes from 1993 to ‘97.

“He represented toughness. A positive attitude. Everything Stop Six represented. Pride. Self value. What I remember most about him was his generosity,” Byars said. “He was a bulldog on the court, but outside of the gym ... if you ever listened to the ladies and people who worked in the school. The parents. The administration. They all loved him because he was the sweetest and kindest person.”

From Oklahoma to the Celtics to Texas

Hughes was born May 15, 1928, in Bristow, Oklahoma, and lost his father when he was in fourth grade. He grew up in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, helping care for his mother and siblings, but also became the best athlete in the family. He went to college and played basketball at Texas Southern.

The Boston Celtics drafted Hughes in 1955, and before attending their training camp he toured with the Harlem Magicians, a rival touring team to the Harlem Globetrotters. Shortly after the start of Celtics’ camp, he tore an Achilles tendon, and his brief pro career was over.

He then joined the Army and was stationed in Japan. When he got out of the Army, he worked at an aircraft parts plant in Tulsa. That was his last non-basketball job.

“My coach at Texas Southern, Edward Adams, called,” Hughes told the Star-Telegram in an interview in 2003.

It was 1958, and Adams wanted Hughes to coach a game he could no longer play.

Hughes didn’t have much interest in the job. Out of politeness, he considered it. But his immense pride — stung by the injury with the Celtics — demanded he start at the top.

“I said, ‘Well Coach, I will go into coaching. But I’ll tell you, I’m not going into the bushes. It’s got to be in the big city. It’s got to be in the highest classification.’ ” Hughes said. “And this is where I really thought I had him. I said, ‘And I ain’t assisting nobody. I’ll be a head coach or I’ll be an airline mechanic.’ ”

He wasn’t kidding. Adams offered Hughes three jobs, including one at Fort Worth’s I.M. Terrell, a segregated Black school east of downtown Fort Worth. Inside of five years at Terrell, in 1963, he had won his first Prairie View Interscholastic League championship. He did it again in 1965 and 1967.

After Terrell closed following integration, Hughes moved to Dunbar in 1973, and the Wildcats became “The Flying Wildcats.”

A power becomes a legend

Long before the days of the internet, Fort Worth Dunbar was a national name in high school basketball. Under Hughes, Dunbar won 32 district championships and won UIL state championships in 1993 and 2003.

Dunbar seldom had the tallest players, but the team routinely played to an identity that Hughes preached and created. The team was relentless, and played for each other as much as they played for him. They never stopped.

“Every game Robert Hughes coached was incredible. He was a basketball genius,” U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth said. “He made winning look easy. No matter the height, depth, or an away game, Coach Hughes always could get the best from his players.”

As Dunbar piled up wins and accomplishments, its reputation grew far beyond the normal parameters for a high school team. Under Hughes, Dunbar would play anybody, regardless of classification.

Hughes often acted like he was just another teacher. He taught classes. For a while, he coached the girls volleyball team.

Not all of this was perfect. Much like the office he kept at Dunbar, his entire résumé was not exactly neat and tidy.

He was reprimanded by the UIL in 1988 and 1998 for illegal practices. In 1995, he received a reprimand for scheduling too many non-district games. In 1998, he was suspended five games for using an ineligible player.

He accepted the punishments, but fought like hell in the process. To do that job, he dealt with so much. So much that most people could not comprehend. Sometimes, he had had enough and that’s when the on-the-court-Coach Hughes came out, and he was not playing.

What the UIL didn’t know, or care, was that most of the “illegal practices” had a purpose far greater than learning a play.

“Those open gyms we had were a way to get guys in a good place. Doing something that was positive,” former Dunbar player Dee Shaw said. “He stitched Stop Six to Fort Worth, and he held it together through basketball. He was reliable. He was something we took pride in.”

The infractions ultimately had no effect on much of anything.

During the introductions to a 2002 state semifinal game between Dunbar and Beaumont Ozen, Hughes received an standing ovation that “shook me to my socks,” he said.

In 2003, Dunbar’s game against Eastern Hills was moved to TCU’s basketball arena because it was expected to be the game where Hughes’ broke the national record for basketball victories. More than 7,000 fans showed up to watch Hughes earn his 1,275th victory, moving past Morgan Wootten of DeMatha (Maryland) Catholic.

After the game, he said: “I just thought about winning the next ballgame, having a winning season, getting guys to work hard, to improve. But it is nice to have the record. I’ll get tomorrow’s paper and see if there’s anything in there about the national record. If somebody else gets the record one day, I can always get that newspaper and say, ‘Well, for a while, I had that record.’”

A life lived this long endured its share of tragedy and sadness.

In 1996, he lost his son John in an incident that Hughes believed was a result of foul play. The case remains unsolved.

Robert’s wife, Sue, died in 2014. The couple had been married for 57 years.

Hughes is survived by his daughter the Rt. Rev. Carlye J. Hughes, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark, daughter Robin Lee Hughes, who is the academic dean at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and son Robert.

Coach Hughes also has a fleet of grandchildren, Robyne Hughes, Carlye Kaye Hughes, Grant Hughes, Gabrielle Hughes, and Griere Hughes. He also has a sister who will turn 100 in August.

“He was not only a Hall of Fame coach but he was a Hall of Fame father,” said his son, Robert Hughes Jr., who coached at Dunbar high school after his father retired. “It’s comforting to know he is in a better place. He has struggled the last few years, but he fought to the very end.”

Robert Hughes was a life not just well lived.

He lived a life that stood for something then, now, and forever.

Staff writer Clarence E. Hill Jr. contributed to this story