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Princeton University Athletics
Born In a Small Town
October 18, 2000 | Football
It sits quietly, not bothering anyone, in its corner of northwest Nebraska, not far from the borders of Wyoming and South Dakota. It's called Crawford, population 1,115, and even in a straight line, it's a long way from there to here.
Take the route that Roger Hughes did, and it's even longer. Almost 25 years, to be exact. And yet while Hughes is in the infancy of his new life in a new place in a new century, you don't have to talk to him for more than five minutes to know two things: This man has a very deep fondness for his roots, and there is still a whole lot of Crawford in the man.
As long as Roger Hughes is Princeton's head football coach, Crawford, Nebraska, will be part of the program.
"It's a really small town," Hughes says with a smile. "Three blocks, and you're out of town. I never even flew in a plane until I got to college."
It's a place where young Roger Hughes woke before the sun came up and made the 18-mile trip to his grandfather's ranch to feed the cattle at 5 a.m. His father and mother were high school sweethearts. There were 46 graduates in his high school class, so everyone had to work together for everything. His father was one of eight brothers and sisters, and he was the first grandchild to attend college. In the summer temperatures well exceed 100 degrees. In the winter it's 20 below with a lot of snow.
"There's a toughness that comes from living in that environment," Hughes says. "You have to survive outside there, and there's something that comes from that. We learned from an early age what it meant to work, and we also learned how to have fun."
Forget the X's and O's. Forget West Coast Offense. This is Midwest Offense.
Work hard. Stay committed. Have fun. Surround yourself with people who share your values. That's the core of what Roger Hughes is doing at Princeton.
"A lot of assistant coaches, when they become head coaches, think they've made it," says Hughes, whose work ethic has included tasks such as vacuuming the locker room. "That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm still learning, and I'm going to keep learning. I think I've brought together a staff that can accept responsibility and work together to achieve what we're trying to achieve. I'm thrilled about that."
If the foundation for what Hughes is trying to build dates to Crawford, then the rest of it begins in another part of the state.
"I remember in 1970 and 1971 when the University of Nebraska won back-to-back national championships," Hughes says. "That turned me onto football."
Still, basketball was actually his favorite sport. After graduating from Crawford High, Hughes earned a basketball scholarship at Nebraska Western Junior College. After one year, though, he left for Doane College in Crete, Neb., where he played football and golf before graduating in 1982.
"I had always thought that I'd go into medicine," Hughes says. "Then again, I always thought about getting into teaching and coaching. I knew I wanted to do something where you would help people. I'm very competitive, and in some kinds of medicine, the patient never gets better. I hate to lose."
He began his coaching career at Doane as he began to do graduate work at Nebraska, and a year later he essentially won the lottery, earning one of 10 spots as a graduate assistant with the Cornhuskers.
"I didn't know how lucky I was," he says. "They had 10 grad assistants, and I was one of two who hadn't been a Nebraska football player."
In the world of college football, there is no place quite like Nebraska.
"It's our pro team out there," Hughes says. "You walk out for a game, and people reach out to touch you. I had my tickets, and I gave them to my parents and people from our hometown, just so they could get to experience it."
In addition to trips to the 1984 Sugar Bowl and the 1985 Fiesta Bowl, Hughes also came away from his Husker experience with a Ph.D. in exercise physiology. After that he made coaching stops at Wisconsin-Whitewater and Cameron (Lawton, Okla.) before an old friend from Doane endorsed him for a vacant spot on the staff of John Lyons at Dartmouth in 1992.
"The level of football was better than I thought it was going to be," Hughes says. "People from the Midwest think the Ivy League's going to be Biff and Tad and Buffy. I got there and I had Jay Fiedler as my quarterback. I had no idea Ivy football was that good."
Hughes was hired by Lyons as offensive coordinator. He worked with Fiedler to develop one of the greatest offenses in league history.
"I think Coach Hughes is an excellent choice for Princeton," says Fiedler, now the starting quarterback for the Miami Dolphins. "He has a great offensive mind, and he prepared me very well for the next level. He'll do a great job at Princeton. I think he's very creative offensively. He communicates very well with his players. He doesn't go out and demand respect, he earns it. We had some outstanding offenses at Dartmouth, and he was a big part of it. He utilized the talent there. He'll do just as good a job at Princeton, identifying and utilizing talent there."
Hughes stayed at Dartmouth until this past January, when he was hired as the Tigers head coach. "After getting to know Roger during his years at Dartmouth, it didn't surprise me at all that he ended up as Princeton's head coach," says Bruce Wood, who covers Dartmouth athletics for the Valley News. "The only real surprise was that someone else didn't scoop him up sooner. He's smart, accomplished and charismatic. He can be as tough as he has to be, and as caring as he needs to be. Princeton got itself a very good coach but a better man."
That sentiment was echoed by a former colleague at Nebraska, Frank Solich, who is now the head coach of the top-ranked Cornhuskers.
"I was pleased to hear that Roger Hughes was the new head coach at Princeton," Solich says. "To those of us who know him, he is an outstanding coach and an outstanding person. I'm confident he will do an tremendous job for Princeton."
Hughes has impressed almost everyone he has met in his new position. He immediately puts people at ease around him, and he has had a smile on his face virtually 100% of the time since he and his wife Laura and four-year-old daughter Maddie arrived from Hanover.
"I still pinch myself every day," he says. "Here I am, a guy from a small town in Nebraska, and I'm at a place like this. When I was at Dartmouth, I couldn't believe that I was recruiting all over the country, in places like Los Angeles. When I was growing up, we thought Scottsbluff was a big city. Now I'm here."
He may be here, but he hasn't forgotten when he was there. Quite the contrary, he's brought a big piece of tiny Crawford with him.
by Jerry Price