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 offered him a basketball scholarship. Playing for coach Edward H. Adams, Hughes was an All-American at Southern. In 1955 Hughes met his wife, Jacquelyne Johnson, while playing in a tournament in Memphis, then was drafted by the Boston Celtics, but he did not make the team. He started playing for a barnstorming team, the Harlem Magicians later in 1955, but a ruptured Achilles tendon, forced him to give up playing basketball. He returned home to Oklahoma and went to 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 during segregation. 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 Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in the Fort Worth Independent School District. 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. 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 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. Hughes was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on March 31, 2017.
Personal life
Hughes' wife of 57 years, Jacquelyne Sue 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 Newarkin September 2018. Another daughter, Robin L. Hughes, is the dean of Southern Illinois University EdwardsvilleSchool of Education, Health and Human Behavior. 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.
