June 19th, 2024
I wasn’t going to write this week, but since death happens in 3s, I felt compelled. A trio of recent deaths from the last week that have impacted me:
Robert Hughes (High school basketball coach; 1928-2024)
I grew up on the Tarrant County side of the Metroplex in the ‘80s/’90s; I read the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Sports page almost every single day from the 5th grade until I was nearly 40; and I eventually became a teacher/coach at the high school level. Factor all those things together, and Robert Hughes is basically Moses to me.
Coach Hughes is a legend, and two minutes on his Wikipedia page will tell you why. All-time winningest high school boys’ basketball coach in United States history (1,333 wins and a .844 winning percentage); five Texas state championships (three Prairie View Interscholastic League titles at I.M. Terrell when Fort Worth ISD was still segregated, and two University Interscholastic League titles with the Flyin’ Wildcats of Fort Worth Dunbar High); 35 district championships; inducted into every Hall of Fame imaginable. He’s an east Fort Worth/Stop Six legend, and I wouldn’t be surprised if in a few years there was a school in the area named after him. All that is great, and extremely impressive, but here’s why Coach Hughes is such an important figure to me: Robert Hughes was a hard-ass, demanding coach, but it came from a place of love.
Ask anybody that has played for him, and they’ll tell you that you’ve never met anyone else with the soul-piercing gaze of Robert Hughes. One guy that played for him in the late ‘90s told me once, “Only man I know that could be a traffic cop using just his eyes. Wouldn’t need anything else.” He had a voice perfectly suited for barking orders across a cramped gym just a few blocks west of the intersection of Interstate Loop 820 and Ramey Street on the East Side. I remember hearing a rumor once that the U.S. Army used to send would-be drill sergeants to Dunbar practices to learn the proper cadence and tone from Coach Hughes, but I think that was more of a Chuck Morris-style myth than reality (though it isn’t THAT far-fetched). Coach was also a perfectionist and would have his charges run plays OVER and OVER and OVER, long past the point of exhaustion, until they could no longer even consider running it incorrectly. Kinda sounds like he was an asshole, right? But his players loved him. LOVED him; adored him. They cherished the time they spent with him.
Why? Because he LOVED his players, deeply and genuinely. He ate meals with them, and visited their homes, and knew their parents and grandparents, and way more than once fed/clothed/housed a player that needed it. Coach Hughes understood that he wasn’t coaching basketball; he was teaching young men, an overwhelming majority of which were young Black men, how to exist in a world full of people that, at best, didn’t want them to succeed, and at worst wanted them dead. For nearly five decades he taught youngsters to look people in the eye when you talk to them; how to shake a hand properly; when it’s the right time to keep your mouth shut; and, maybe most importantly, when you must speak up.
I hear a lot of coaches bitch about how hard the job is now. “These damn kids are impossible to teach nowadays, with their social medias and YouTubes.” Bullshit. Times change, politics change, technology changes, and society changes, but I firmly believe that 9th-12th graders haven’t changed much in the last century. You know who else thought so? Coach Hughes. I met him once at the Texas High School Coaches Association annual conference, in 2007, a couple years after he retired. The conference was in Fort Worth that year, and I was entering my first year in the profession. I saw him sit down by himself, and I couldn’t help but stare at him. “Holy shit, that’s Coach Hughes.” I guess I stared too long, ‘cause he looked my way, smiled, and waved me over. He asked me if I’d like to talk, and I sat down. So, here I am, a 25-year-old dumbass kid, going into my first year as a coach, sitting in the company of ROBERT HUGHES, and I start asking questions about the PVIL, and the ‘03 State Championship team, and coaching Charles Smith, and he stops me. “I’m retired. What about you? Where are you at this year?” I told him, and he said, “Oh, east Texas. Really good kids out there.” Then he asks where I attended high school. “South of Fort Worth, right? Really good kids down there.” He asks a few more questions, about where I grew up and where I’d like to eventually coach, and when I answer he says a variation of the same five words: “Really good kids down/up/out/over there.” Finally, he said, “You do this long enough, and you learn this: No matter where you’re at, kids are kids, and always will be. Love them, care for them, pour into them, and they’ll do things that will amaze you.”
Yes sir, Coach. Rest easy.
Bo (Ballplayer, teammate, coach, father, husband; 1979-2024)
This one hurts. Badly. I found out a few days ago that a former teammate of mine from college took his own life.
Life, and getting older, can suck, right? We all know that. One of the reasons is death. We’re all going to die someday, maybe even someday soon; so will our parents, spouses, kids, and friends, but it’s just so easy to ignore all that. Every now and then, though, death punches you right in the mouth and reminds you that it’s undefeated and not going anywhere. Guys I’ve played with have died before, kids I’ve coached have died before, and it’s always hard. This though…this is different. ‘Cause Bo was different.
The first thing you need to know about Bo is that he was built like a brick shitter. Giant head, neck like a brahma bull, lats you could see from space, huge forearms and biceps, massive hands, quads wider than my entire body, calves that looked like bowling balls…just a strong, muscly, jacked human being. With a body like that, especially as athletic as he was, Bo was pretty much destined to be one of two things: a catcher, or a dominant defensive tackle. Bo was both in high school, but it was catching that took him to college baseball, where our paths eventually crossed.
The second thing you need to know about Bo is that he was one of the best teammates I ever had; maybe the best. Catchers are typically always good teammates, but Bo was so much more. I was a pitcher, and he just had a knack for knowing not only what it was that I needed to hear, but when I needed to hear it. Usually it was something positive, but sometimes it wasn’t. One time he came out to the mound with two outs in the 9th of a home game we’re leading by a couple runs. I walk a dude, and none of the pitches were particularly close, so Bo calls time, strolls out to the mound, and simply says, “If we’re not drinking beer in 20 minutes, I’m punching you as hard as I can, right in your stupid face.” He turned, went back to the plate, squatted down, called a pitch, and I got a groundball out. Another time I hit a guy in the ribs with a pitch, and he started chirping at me. Bo, very calmly, asked the guy, “Did it really hurt that bad?” The hitter answered, “Well, no.” Bo, with an eerie and menacing calmness, simply and slowly said, “Would you like it to?” It took the guy a second to realize what Bo was saying to him, but once he did, he said, “No sir,” hustled down to first, and that was the end of it. Some dudes are stone badasses ‘cause they fight a lot; some are stone badasses ‘cause they don’t. Bo was the latter.
Here's the third and most important thing you need to know about Bo: He was one of the sweetest, kindest, and caring guys I ever played with. And trust me, this isn’t some after-the-fact, revisionist history, “Say something nice about the guy because he died” thing, either. He was genuinely one of the nicest dudes I’ve ever known. It was such an interesting dichotomy, this giant mountain of a guy that could literally squat a quarter of a ton, being such a teddy bear. He’d get a couple (dozen) beers in him, and start petting your face, like you were a puppy. “[REDACTED], you’re such a good friend, I love you,” he’d say, as he pawed at you. “Thanks Bo, I love you too.” He really enjoyed playing cards on the bus and laughing at the nonsense college ballplayers would say when we had several hours to do nothing but hang out, talk shit, and try to take each other’s money. I’ve always been a guy that would say some dumb shit just to get a laugh, and Bo seemed to enjoy that aspect of my personality. Dude had such a megawatt smile, too; I can still see it. Fuck.
And here’s the fourth thing you need to know about Bo: I’ve no idea why he took his own life. There’s a thousand reasons why someone does that, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. Mental health probably played a part, and he mentioned to a buddy recently that he and his wife were likely headed for a divorce, but who really knows? What I'm sure of is that one of my boys was hurting and in despair, to the point that he thought the only answer was suicide, and that fucks me up. Why didn’t he reach out to one of us? Why didn’t he say something? Why didn’t I reach out more often? He’s just 20 minutes up the road, why weren’t we in touch more? Could I have helped? I’ve gone through a ton the last two years in terms of mental health/sobriety/recovery, would he have talked to me about it? I don’t know. I’m not trying to make this about me, but I am trying process all this and what I keep coming back to is that I failed him as a teammate. Is that ridiculous? Of course it is, but grief and anguish have never been known for their ability to bring about rational thoughts.
I dunno. I guess it scares me. If THAT guy, with all he had going for him in this world, who had the love and respect of so many in his life, who was such a positive and caring guy, could do THAT…what chance do any of us have? That’s the thought I keep coming back to, and it scares me. But then I remember something: I’m a pretty fucking good teammate, too. And my job as Bo’s teammate at this point is to honor his family and his memory by checking in on those I love, being the best father I can be to my kids, and doing everything I can to make sure that if one of my boys needs help, in any way, that he gets it. Once a teammate, always a teammate, and I’ll be goddamned if I let Bo down going forward.
I love you, Bo. And I miss you. Rest easy.
