HALL OF FAME SPOTLIGHT, PART III: Coach pays homage to his family, coaches and athletes

(Note: This is the final part of a feature about incoming Bartlesville Athletic Hall of Fame inductee Terry Hughes. Hughes is one of four individuals slated to be welcome into the BaHOF during the induction celebration next fall at the Hilton Garden Inn in Bartlesville. The other three individuals are Adams Golf Course Director of Operations Jerry Benedict, former Bartlesville High catcher Lisa Harvey and former College High legendary athlete Rickey Jackson, along with the 1982 Bartlesville High softball team. The Bartlesville Sports Commission oversees the BaHOF.)

Terry Hughes coached almost every sport — many of them on junior high or freshman level — during a long and distinguished career in working with Bartlesville Public Schools student-athletes.

But — while he left an indelible impact on many of those teams — perhaps he performed his greatest coach opus with the Bartlesville High golf program.

He started out coaching both the boys and girls.

Hughes “did a really good job,” said fellow coach Jeff Rude, who eventually would inherit the boys golf team from Hughes. “Tom Zeiders was one of his really good players and went on to play Division I golf.”

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As a junior golfer, Zeiders captured the 1003 Oklahoma Golf Association Junior Amateur state trophy — beating Broken Arrow’s Andy Crabtree 1-up in the final.

Incidentally, the trophy had been won the previous year by another Bartlesville golfer, Chance Cozby.

Zeiders joined Craig Cozby and Chance Cozby in winning the title a total of four times in seven years.

Zeiders went on to compete for Tulane University in the late 1990s to early 2000s.

But, after Rude had started his career as an educator and coach in Bartlesville schools, Hughes decided to step away from coaching, in order to become an assistant principal.

Hughes contacted Rude about coaching the boys.

“His find concern was finding someone to take over the boys team,” Rude said. “I was sure thankful for that.”

It’s a position Rude has maintained for more than a quarter-century. Among Rude’s highlights was coaching Hughes son Nathan, who won the Class 6A individual state championship in 2009.

Terry Hughes, meanwhile, returned to coaching a couple of years after he had stepped away. He took charge of the Bartlesville girls team, a job he held for nearly 20 years, and with which he produced some outstanding teams and individuals.

In 23 or 24 years of working with girls golf, Bartlesville qualified its entire team 16 times for state, and sent at least one to three at-large qualifiers the other years.

“It always seemed to get the most out of everybody and led by example,” Rude said. “He wan a very disciplined and structured practice.:

For Hughes total impact as a teacher, coach and administrator — as well as a friend — “he deserves to be in the hall of fame for so many reasons,” Rude said. “I wasn’t here when he playey but from what I’ve heard other people say, when he played basketball and baseball he played at a very high level.”

That kind of performance extended to summer baseball.

Hughes maintains many happy memories from his summers in the late 1970s, especially in 1978, with American Legion baseball.

Many of recollections are chucklers — such as Stan Baughn throwing him knuckleballs to him at first base, or fireballing thrower Bill Rhodes uncorking 90-miles-an-hour strikes to first base on pickoff moves — encouraged by the scamps in the dugout to do so.

“They thought it was hilarious,” Hughes said.

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Beyond those colorful moments, he also recalls the stands at Bartlesivlle Municipal Field (now Doenges Stadium) being completely packed in the grandstand to cheer on Hughes and his Doenges Ford Indians teammates.

“We had a fan base second to none,” he said. “Opponents were always impressed with our fans. They were awesome.”

In the 1978 Oklahoma American Legion state championship final — hosted by Bartlesville — Oklahoma City Reynolds battled the Indians.

Both teams boasted mighty records entering the titanic clash.

“That final game was fun,” Hughes said.

The Indians dominated Reynolds and their coach TedReynolds “threw in the towell — literally,” Hughes said. “I can’t even remember the inning that he did it.”

OKC Reynolds boasted a couple of players named Mickey Tetleton and Todd Demeter that would do great things for the sport.

But, the Indians then lost twice to Texas in the American Legion Mid-South Regional, which cost them a berth in the American Legion World Series.

Hughes said a Philadelphia Phillies scout approached him at the tourney and tell him he thought the Indians were one of the two best teams in the nation.

“That didn’t do much to soothe that wound (being eliminated in the regional),” Hughes said. “I rode a bus all the way back to Bartlesville and took the ACT test the next morning. I remember looking at a question that asked what an appositive was and I thought I don’t even care what a stupid appositive is.”

Hughes finished out his school playing days at Bartlesville Wesleyan College. He participate don both the basketball and baseball teams.

“I had multiple opportunities to play baseball at different colleges, but I really wanted to play two sports,” Hughes explained.

BWC was one of the few that gave him that chance.

Beyond that, his choice to attend BWC also involved faith and affordability.

The choice forced Hughes to see a different dimension of sports.

He had pretty much always played on winning teams. Not so at BWC.

“At Wesleyan, I learned how to lose,” he said, adding he didn’t mean that observation in a negative way.

“We played a very competitive national ranked schedule back then. … I had to learn how to ‘learn’ after losses instead of just reacting emotionally. It was probably one of the biggest learning opportunities that had shaped my view of competitive athletics and their purpose in high school and college.”

He credits college coaches Don Maness, Gary Baldwin and Roger Skelly for helping him understand this concept.

It was during his time at Wesleyan he decided on a career in education.

“I felt that however small my abilities to teach and coach were, God was calling me to use those,” he said. “What I didn’t realize was the amount of learning that I was going to benefit from the kids and the relationships that I forged in the last 40 years. Truly a blessing.”

During his college years, a doctor kindly suggested to Hughes he seek another type of career more financially rewarding, and in which he could ‘achieve much greater things.’

“He was a good man and I thanked him … but I can’t emphasize enough how wrong he was. I have four of my own kids who I love dearly and whom I have been blessed beyond measure. … They have put up with me and my mistakes.”

Hughes also noted the strain and time being a coach has on a family.

He credits his wife Julie for accepting most of the responsibility of transporting the children to their activities, while because of is own coaching duties he would show up later to watch them.

“She would take them to their practices and games and do their wash, feed them, buy their clothes and take care of me also,” he said. “She never complained about my coaching and the time it took.”

It was tough not to see more of his children’s games, but, “I don’t remember my kids complaining about it,” Hughes said. “I thoroughly enjoyed watching them play but missing was tough on our family. … I love them dearly for this.”

Hughes said he will be accepting his Hall of Fame induction to honor them also.

He feels especially grateful for being picked to go into the BaHOF.

He praised his former coaches for their hard work in coaching.

He spoke about the challenges of coaching and trying to foster change in their athletes.

“Our risk is that we don’t get the recipe right and it causes a lot of sleepless nights,” he said.

He feels he is being recognized for the merits of his athletes

“They put forth the work, sweat and risk on the field of competition,” he said. “They had to put up with me when I was impatient and my teach was reactive and not proactive,” he said.

In addition to accepting the honor on his family’s behalf, he also wants to pay homage to his athletes.

When he looks back at the impact of his coaches and parents on his life he reflects on his work the past four decades with student-athletes.

“I really hope I did this job as half as good as they did for me.”

This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: BAHOF SPOTLIGHT: Reflection on member of Class of 2022