This League is named for former Houston Oiler head coach Ed Hughes. Coach Hughes had a long and accomplished career in football. The photo above is part of the cover of a 1971 Oilers game program. The complete cover is shown below in the section dedicated to his days with Houston. Coach Hughes passed on June 23, 2000 at the age of 72. His Chicago Tribune obituary is at the bottom of this page.
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. Except for a few photos marked with an asterisk, all the items here are from my collection.
Coach Hughes is an inductee into the Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame. He was part of the Class of 2019. Click this link to check out his page. He has two pages on the Pro Football Reference site. One that lists his extensive career as a coach, and one for his NFL playing days.
Among those he worked with over his three decades in coaching were Hall Of Famers Mike Ditka, Otto Graham, Tom Landry, Hank Stram, Mac Speedie, Ernie Stautner, and Dick Vermeil.
This index card, signed by Coach Hughes, is one of the two examples I have in my collection.
Playing Days @ The University of Tulsa
After stops at NC State and an Oklahoma JC, Ed Hughes ended up at Tulsa for the '52 and '53 seasons. He played on the Golden Hurricane team that was ranked #11 and lost by a point to Florida in the Gator Bowl on NYD, 1953. The team photo* below is from the UTulsa Athletic Hall of Fame site. EH is fourth from the left in the second row from the top. He is partially obscured but thats him in front of #78. Below that photo is the Gator Bowl program.
The program has headshots of all the starters. It's the only place I've ever seen EH refered to as 'Eddie'!
Tommy Hudspeth, seen to Hughes' right, was a fellow DB on that Tulsa squad. He also went on to be a coach and football exec for many years. Also on that team was future Pro Football Hall of Famer, tackle Bob St. Clair.
Playing Days w/ the Rams
Ed Hughes was drafted out of Tulsa by the LA Rams in the 10th round of the 1954 NFL Draft. Here is an Rams team-issued card from 1954, scanned front and back (the cards in the Rams' 1955 set are identical but lack the black border.). It's about 4x6 on glossy stock. A great item.
Ed Hughes made his offical NFL debut with the Rams in Baltimore on September 26, 1954. Here is the cover of the program from that game. He's listed on the roster as a 'halfback' and made an interception in the Rams' 48-0 dismantling of the hapless, pre-Unitas Colts.
Ed Hughes never had a dedicated Topps football card but he appears on their 1956 Rams team card, #114 in that year's set. The card shows the '55 squad which lost the '55 title game to the Browns. (Topps seems to credit the Rams with the '55 NFL title.) He's on the front row, third from the right. My copy has a somewhat out-of-focus photo which is very common for these. By the time this card was in kids' hands in the late summer of 1956, Ed Hughes had been dealt to the Giants where he would win a championship.
Getty Images* has this shot of Ed Hughes with the Rams from their December 4, 1955 game against the Baltimore Colts in Los Angeles. EH is wearing #49 (the leftmost of the two Rams defenders) and he is up against Ray Berry. The Rams won 20-14 while holding the future Hall of Famer Berry to one catch.
Playing Days w/ the Giants
One of my favorite Ed Hughes pieces is this 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 a shot of Hughes playing for the Giants. This was an eBay item* I decided not to purchase since it was a home printed copy of a newswire shot and not an original photo. And the seller was located in Australia so the import fees turned a $8 item suddenly cost prohibitive.
It is a cool pic anyway. Ed Hughes is #48 playing DB for Big Blue and breaking up a pass in Yankee Stadium. Some internet sleuthing led me to the conclusion that this is from the Giants' 30-0 drubbing of Washington on November 23, 1958. The #81 that Hughes is battling is receiver Joe Walton. Walton came to the Giants in a 1961 trade, then went on to a long coaching career including a stint as HC of the Jets. Over the years these two football 'lifers' undoubtedly tangled many times!
Here's an internet find*, the '56 World Champion NY Football Giants team photo. Ed Hughes is #48 just right of center in the second row. That club had quite the collection of talent.
The '57 Giants Media Guide sings Hughes' praises and mis-identifies his hometown as Tulsa.
This next item is the centerpiece of my Ed 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. It's hard to photograph in the case but I obtained a very similar, ungraded example and the front and back are below. The ungraded one has his printed signature below the photograph. 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.
Here are the front and back of the ungraded example.
As an Assistant Coach
Ed Hughes Coaching Career
| Team / Years | Position |
|---|---|
| University of Tulsa (1959) | Assistant |
| Dallas Texans (1960–1962) | Defensive backs |
| Denver Broncos (1963) | Defensive backs |
| Washington Redskins (1964–1967) | Defensive backs |
| San Francisco 49ers (1968–1969) | Receivers |
| San Francisco 49ers (1970) | Offensive Coordinator |
| Houston Oilers (1971) | Head Coach |
| St. Louis Cardinals (1972) | Assistant |
| Dallas Cowboys (1973–1974) | Backfield |
| Dallas Cowboys (1975–1976) | Running backs |
| Detroit Lions (1977) | Offensive Coordinator |
| New Orleans Saints (1978–1979) | Offensive Coordinator/Offensive backfield |
| New Orleans Saints (1980) | Offensive Coordinator |
| Philadelphia Eagles (1981) | Offensive Assistant |
| Chicago Bears (1982–1988) | Offensive Coordinator |
| Chicago Bears (1989) | Assistant to the Head Coach |
| Philadelphia Eagles (1989) | Quarterbacks |
| Lake Forest (1990) | Defensive Coordinator |
That list, as accurate as my research would allow, shows what a diverse and extensive career Coach Hughes had in football. Coaching running backs, defensive backs, and everything in between. Head coach, assistant to a head coach, coordinator on both sides of the line, Ed Hughes did it all. I didn't see special teams listed anywhere, but he had experience returning punts and kickoffs as a player, so I don't doubt he could have coached that aspect of the game as well.
The following are all from Coach Hughes days on Hank Stram's staff with the Dallas Texans of the early AFL. It was his first gig as a professional coach. The first item, from a schedule/ticket brochure, is a random internet find. I'm trying to locate one for my collection. The other two pics come from the team's media guide. The ones on sale on eBay are reproductions. I'm waiting for an original. CEH is in the third row in the team photo, on the far right in the jacket and tie. The 'Bill Walsh' seen in those items is not the Hall of Fame Bill Walsh of 49ers fame.
This picture with Football Hall of Famer Otto Graham dates from 1966 when he served on Graham's staff in Washington. He's five years away from his shat at a head coaching job.
