You'd think I'd shut up now that we've crowned a champ for the 2025 season! No, I still have things to talk about, even if I'm mostly talking to myself here.

First things first...

If you haven't entered a roster yet, there is still time. We will lock it down at the kickoff of the first NFL Wildcard game on Saturday. You're probably even more tired of getting my emails on this than I am of sending them. So what are you waiting for? I'd love to see all 12 franchises involved. Here is the link:

2025/26 Second Season

Here's Dan's trophy for winning Hughes Bowl 45. The good news... I think it looks great. Crown Awards always does a good job, which is why I've used them for so many years. They processed my order and shipped it in a couple of days.

The bad news... they shipped it to ME!

The backstory: they've been advertising free shipping for 'trophies' over $100 forever. The discount was especially welcome this year because they had bumped the cost of this thing by about $30(?) over last year when I bought mine. What they failed to advertise is that they now consider these things as 'acrylics', not 'trophies'. WTH? I couldn't figure out why there was a charge for shipping when I tried to check out. I contacted support, had a 'chat window' opened, and made my complaint.

The agent said she'd 'kick this upstairs for consideration', and had me send her the shipping address again. A few hours later, I get a new invoice with a $5 shipping discount. 😖 I was certainly hoping for something better, but I paid for it 'cause I was tired of messing with it. Two days later, FedEx sends a shipping notice with MY ADDRESS. So in the end, I not only didn't get my free shipping, but I'm paying for shipping twice!

Then again, it did turn out nice. BTW...any 'imperfections' that appear in those photos of the trophy are the result of my shitty photo-taking skills. The thing is gorgeous. LOL

And here is the 2025 Hughes News Special Edition. At least I think it is. I'm struggling with Microsoft's soon-to-be-orphaned Publisher program, so I'm giving this a whirl in Word. I may tinker with a font or something, but this gives you a good idea of what it's looking like.

In 2025, we welcomed a couple of new members into the 300-Win Club. Joining the Heroes and Flyers were the Nats (big year for Dan, yes?) and the Holes. Congrats, Jim! The Holes are the first non-Inaugural Year club to make that milestone.

In the right-hand column, among the links, you'll see one to the page I made for the 300 Win teams. It notes the details of their accomplishment. And you'll see that we have a couple of franchises on the cusp.

We are still a few weeks away from our annual get-together, but I figured I'd remind everyone of the date. Block out the afternoon of Saturday, February 7th, on your calendar. I'm keeping my options open as to where we go. I like Cactus Cove, the site of our last two shindigs, but I also like changing things up. I have a couple of ideas in mind, but I'm going to wait until I can get a better picture of the weather before I decide.

EDIT...I may move this up a week because of a possible conflict. Stay tuned.

Now that the season is about over, I've been working on my favorite Hughes-related project, our yearbook. I love having all our records in one place and not needing to upload individual files to some unreliable and finicky third-party site.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through updating it for the new year. I've added a couple of things, most notably scores for every game in our history. Added them for every postseason game as well. I'm compiling a list of highs and lows and assorted quirky stats as I come across them. That will be included, too. Also left to do is the lineup data page for 2025, and I will again put together a Second Season scoring data page. Once it's all done, sometime in February, I will send it via email.

It is an Excel workbook, and I am aware that not everyone has access to Excel. Once the thing is complete and published, I will try to dig into ways to easily convert it to something universal, like Google Sheets or as a .pdf, if that is even possible.

In the meantime, enjoy some of these great tunes while you're waiting.