Ed Hughes page

This League is named for former Houston Oiler head coach Ed Hughes. Coach Hughes had a long and accomplished career in football. In the pic above that's him in the cap during his time with the Bears as OC. He helped them to the '86 Super Bowl title. His Chicago Tribune obituary is below. I've created this page as a place to give Coach Hughes his props. I have gathered some photos and assorted other memorabilia through the years and I'll display them here. Coach Hughes is an inductee into the Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame. He was part of the Class of 2019. A nice honor for the football lifer from western New York. Click this link and check out his page on their website.

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The latest addition to this gallery is below. It's a photo produced by Jay Publishing in 1957 and printed on thin paper. It's part of a set of New York Giants photos that were sold at stadiums (Yankee Stadium in this case), through the mail via advertisements in sports magazines, and at some shops such as Manny's Baseball Land which was across Jerome Avenue from Yankee Stadium. I am familiar with the much more common baseball photos. These 5x7 black and white pics came in sets comprised of 12 to 20+ members of a specific team, packaged in manila envelopes or cello bags, and are known as 'picture packs'. I have lots of Orioles and some assorted others. This is the first football photo from Jay's that I've owned. Jay also published team yearbooks which were sold in direct competition with the 'official' yearbooks at newsstands.

Here is the reverse of the Jay Publishing photo card.

This is one of my favorite additions to this Ed Hughes page. It's an image of Coach Hughes that I scanned from a color slide I nabbed off eBay for $2. The slide is labeled as "Coach Ed Hughes Houston Oilers" so we can assume it's from 1971. I love coming across oddball items like this of Coach.

Another eBay pickup is this index card signed by Coach Hughes.

Here is the text of his obituary as it appeared in the Chicago Tribune in 2000.

Next we have a team-issued photo of Coach Hughes' 1971 Oilers. Coach is in the second row on the far right. Ken Burroughs, UH alum Dickie Post, and Dan Pastorini are upfront on the left. Right behind them is shitbag Bud Adams. On the top row is future Houston automobile mogul Mac Haik (#86).

Here are the '85 Chicago Bears, winners of Super Bowl XX. Ed Hughes was the Offensive Coordinator and is pictured in the top row, third from the left.

This shot shows Coach Hughes directing Jim McMahon, Walter Payton, and even goal line back William "The Fridge" Perry from the sidelines during Super Bowl XX in January 1986. The Bears steamrolled the Patriots.

Here are more than a dozen original 8x10 and wire-service photos of Coach Hughes, mostly from his season with the Oilers, which I obtained from different places on the web including eBay. Most originated from the Houston Post and Chronicle photo libraries.

In this next photo the blackboard list is my doing. Longtime Hughes guys will get the joke.

This picture with Football Hall of Famer Otto Graham dates from 1966. That was Grahams' first year as Washington's head coach. Coach Hughes worked as Graham's DB coach for two years before he moved on to take a job as Offensive Coordinator with the 49ers. As far as I can tell that San Francisco gig was his first time ever working on that side of the football having played and coached defensive positions since at least his college days at Tulsa.

This New York Times story dated December 22, 1971 describes the rift between Coach Hughes and the Oilers (inept) management that led to his dismissal after one season here. The last paragraph mentions the management-directed firing of OL Coach Ernie Zwahlen. That answers a question I'd had as to why Zwahlen wasn't in the team photo since he is seen in a couple of the sideline shots next to Coach Hughes. Zwahlen had coached the 49ers' offensive line previous to his being hired away by CEH. The 1970 49ers set an NFL record for the fewest sacks allowed in a 14 game season. That line gained fame as 'The Protectors'. No wonder CEH was angry about his being let go.

How's this for a picture? That's Coach Hughes working as a fabricator at a trailer shop in North Houston in 1972, the year after his Oilers season.

Next is an LA Rams team-issued card from 1954 or 1955, scanned front and back (the cards in the two Rams sets are identical and I don't know which this one is). It's about 4x6 on glossy stock. A great item.

This is the centerpiece of my Hughes collection. It's the 1956 NY Giants team-issued 4x6 that was created by the same company that did the Rams versions. But this one was signed by Ed Hughes. The photocard shows up terribly here. It is in a hard plastic case as it was examined and verified by one of the sports card authenticating companies. I tried a few times to get a good camera shot of it and this is the best I can do for now. The photo is likely to have been taken during the same session that produced the shot used on the Jay picture pack photo near the top of this page. As I add more items to my collection this is where you'll find them. RIP Coach!