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A look back at Hughes League Draft history (UPDATED...TWICE!)

Note: The Draft Locale info is linked over on the right side column under Important Links--->

June 15 Update...

Over the last few days, I have been talking to Mike Padilla and he mentioned that he had memories of drafting at Mark Kuhlmann's home. After some back and forth we are confident that the draft in question was 2005. Mike at that time was a 'co-owner' of the Strawmenn with Mark's widow, Sheri. Sheri had run the team as Mark's health declined. When Mark passed in 2004 Mike stepped up and was the defacto owner/manager. I have directories from as late as 2008 that list Sheri as a co-owner but by 2006 this was Mike's team.

As for the draft in question, Mike's memories made sense and aligned with Moose's comment that he recalled drafting at 'someone's house' other than the ones I had already listed. Hogan also had vague memories of a draft at a place I had not come up with.

As for me... I remember being at Mark's home for Hughes business, but I didn't think it was a draft. I spent quite a bit of time at Mark and Sheri's and we often talked football and golf. But Mike mentioned that he was there making decisions with Sheri and it all made sense.

Filling in the 2005 blank (there is a chance it was 2006) narrows down the number of 'open dates' in our draft history. Hopefully, I can nail them all down at some point.

June 25 Update...

Based on the information I received from Bobby and a couple of hunches I received from myself, I filled in all the locations for our drafts through the years. A couple of dates (marked with an asterisk) are my best guesses with my limited sources of evidence. I am certain that there are no unaccounted sites although the years may be incorrect. 

I got this picture from Dan Scofield in May. It's a shot of his 2016 draft setup as he made his selections from Cuba. Yup, Cuba!  I love stuff like this. I know Jack has drafted from a ship out on the Seven Seas. Years ago Rick drafted from various rest stops along the thruways from NY to Massachusetts. In 2019 Dan drafted from an isolated cabin in the Maine woods. 

That's the thing about the draft. You never know what might happen. This is why I worry that the whole thing might go to shit that night and leave us scrambling. You may recall that last year I tried out a new draft room, Primetime Draft, and hadn't realized that the customized settings for our league were specific to one computer..my desktop, not my laptop. Oops! A lot of work down the drain and I was scrambling to manually set the thing up minutes before the scheduled start time. 

I did a little draft history reminiscing in 2015 on the old blog site. Let me update it here with thoughts about the locales and some memories of each. These are not in any particular order. 

Oh, before I get into this, you can see the info on each season's draft along with some notes, by clicking the Draft Locale link over on the right column. 

'Club' Westcott... Jimmy O and I lived in the Memorial Club apartments on Westcott near Memorial Park for a few years. It was the site of our first draft and came when my life was 'in flux' to say the least. That 1980 draft was held in the middle of Tropical Storm Danielle and several of the crew came directly from a flag football game—quite a mess. Steve Heinan aka Buster drafted Wendell Tyler early. Tyler had broken both legs in a car wreck not long before that but not everyone had access to (or paid any attention to) that sort of news back then. That pick caused Heinan a lot of grief but it paled compared to a more infamous pick a few years later. More on that pick in a future post. But here's a photo preview:

We had eight owners that first night but added a ninth, Gary Hamman, who picked a roster from the NFL leftovers the next day and didn't do badly with them. He won a couple of money weeks with guys he selected at a table at Otto's on Memorial Drive while a bunch of us drank beer and ridiculed his picks. It turned out that Gary put together a better squad than several of the owners who had been drafting the night before. Three or four of those guys didn't win a dime that season.

A point of historical order...Earl Campbell was the first-ever Hughes League draft pick. He was taken by the Bushwackers, a team owned by Mike Fauser and Mike Andrich which only played that first season. 

Staffordshire 'Arms'... located on Staffordshire Blvd. which ran (back then) between Holcombe and OST, our Parkwood Apartments unit was the apartment version of a double-wide trailer. It was huge. The buildings, all four-plexes, were made of limestone (just like most of UH) and built to survive a nuclear attack. Our apartment consisted of the whole top floor of one 'four-plex' buildings. 

Sam, Moose, Jimmy, myself, maybe Hogan, and/or Hamman lived here at various times with some non-Hughes owners. Each draft we held here was a Labor Day affair and we took a 'barbecue break' most years to grill out back. Of course, Labor Day always meant the Jerry Lewis Telethon with Jerry getting more hysterical and incoherent by the hour. And the Telethon always meant that we were treated to Charo. Watch this video from the '83 Telethon (I bet you can't watch the full 4 minutes!)

Staffordshire was the scene of what is probably the single greatest draft moment of this or any other league's history. I alluded to it above and you likely are aware of it... Gary Hamman's pick of David Overstreet. That would have been a great pick had it not been for the fact that Overstreet had drawn his last earthly breath 74 days prior. I'll take a deep dive into the life and career of David Overstreet soon.

That pick eclipsed Hamman's pick, in 1981, of the Vikings Jarvis Redwine. Redwine had been a standout at Nebraska but did next to nothing over three NFL seasons. In 1981, when Hamman made him a first-round EHFL choice, he went for 20 yards on five carries over three games played. His son, Jarvis II, is currently employed in the personnel department at Nebraska. 

Here are our 'main' drafting sites through the years and a few notes on each...

Barry's Pizza on Richmond in the Windsor Center... Steve Barenholtz ran this place and we used it in 1983. We tossed Joe Pogge's girlfriend out of the draft (Joe was unable to make it there himself)  and Joe was rightfully pissed about it. Paz was on hand for the draft and he was instantly granted a franchise. He led his Blizzard to a 5-9 record without having prepped for the draft but went 16-10-1 over the next couple of seasons. 

Moose's house on Elm St in Bellaire and Sam/Moose's house on Endicott, also in Bellaire. I don't remember which one, but one of these places was where we first used a speakerphone to communicate with our out-of-town owner(s). It's also where 

UH Intramural offices and UH Intramural conference room. These drafts were hosted by Mark Kuhlmann. We drafted in the intramural offices themselves or in the conference room across the hall. Mark usually got a student intramural worker to 'run' our cardboard draft board. For a couple of years, we had food brought in by Paz and Keith which was nice. 

Bobby's MHMRA Offices on the Southwest Freeway This place was the beginning of our 'big time' drafting. Bobby hosted and provided computers for each owner as well as some nice groceries! It was quite a step up for us. 

Bobby's Offices in the Med Center at Texas Children's...The Meyer Building on S Braeswood near Greenbriar We were here in 2008 and possibly 2007. Bobby had changed companies so we moved along with him. I honestly have no memory of what this particular place was like and so I'm thinking it was a one-year spot after Bobby began working for Texas Children's. 

Bobby's Offices in the Med Center at Texas Children's...The Feigin Building. The highrise on the Med Center campus itself and probably the most NFL Draft-like spot we have ever used. Lots of elbow room, multiple computers, and $487 per hour parking! I felt like Pete Rozelle! I said then and I'll say now... no fantasy league anywhere had a more professional setup than we did in the Feigin Building. 

The specific transition years from MHMRA to the Meyer Building and on to the Feigin Building is murky but it happened when Bobby changed jobs so I bet he can shed some light on it.

Mike's office (and eventually his house) on Heights Blvd  Paz volunteered to host the draft in 2015 at what was then his Houston business office on Heights Boulevard. I had started to feel guilty about putting the burden on Bobby every year so we began what was going to be a rotation between the two sites. Paz had a nice layout with a big conference table and plenty of available owners's desks. He served up a nice spread including Torchy's Tacos which became a regular thing. We have been there for four drafts over the years and it's become our primary draft home since Bobby's retirement. 

One-offs and oddball places...

Kuhlmann's Home in the Heights... See the Update of June 16 at the top of this post. This was a one-time site we used the year after Mark's passing.

Russo's Pizza... This remains the most 'mysterious' of our draft locales. I'm halfway convinced that I've been hallucinating about holding a draft at such a random location but recently Hogan says we were out there. Moose, on the other hand, says he's never been to a Russo's. Maybe it was some other pizza joint. Whatever it was, the spot was way out west towards Mission Bend/Pecan Grove/Sugarland, maybe off Bellaire or Beechnut. The year was 1987, '88 or 1990. Those are the only dates I can't find concrete evidence for. 

If Russo's fills one of those empty dates then the other two are very likely to be drafts held at Staffordshire or the UH offices. There's also a chance that we held a third draft at one of Moose's homes. 

I have a league newsletter from the summer of 2000 inviting everyone to the draft to be held out here at my home. But that was changed because I have blog posts thanking Bobby for his hospitality. We never drafted from my place here in Channelview.

An email draft in 2002....my emergency gallbladder surgery forced us to scramble since the surgery was either on the date of the scheduled draft or a day before. We were still a year away from using the Myfantasyleague platform, so no live draft room alternative was available. We did everything via email and phone calls. It sure wasn't fun but, as always, we made it work. 

Online 'live' drafts...We've held three fully online 'live' drafts over the years. In 2017 Hurricane Harvey played havoc with the Houston area and people were still dealing with the aftermath so we all drafted on our computers from home or wherever. In 2020 & 2021 COVID made getting together less appealing so we muddled through with an online draft and we had some Zoom participants as well.

So there we are. Headed to our 45th annual draft at a place still to be determined. As noted above I have every draft site nailed down with a few 'date' gaps. Hughes League research is always a fun way for me to waste spend time! 😼

Here are some draft room pics I came across while doing this deep dive. Enjoy!

This next one is Dan's 'Cabin In The Woods' LOL

Rick checked in via Zoom or Facetime or something.

The next post here will be a look back at the infamous (and somewhat mythical) David Overstreet pick. I'll also have some additional thoughts on things like supplemental drafts and other league gatherings. Meanwhile, enjoy some girly photos.