Washington County’s WNBA champion talks about his career, his legacy and the love he has for his wife.
From the time Dan Hughes was 7 years old watching Fort Frye High School have a great season that year, and after his parents took him to watch the tournament game, he knew he wanted to have a career in basketball.
Most people don’t know what they want to do with their lives, but Hughes knew from an early age that he would become a basketball coach.
Growing up, there were only a few channels offered on the television for him to watch. Hughes would have to plan around when the games would be televised, making any match exciting to watch.
Even when learning to read, the first thing Hughes remembers reading was the newspaper and the standings of different sports teams. Sports always played a major role in Hughes’s life, including playing them himself.
Evolving from inside the garage to a homemade wooden backboard hanging outside and his father playing the game with him, Hughes played basketball as a child and would later become a collegiate athlete.
The garage where he learned to play was not very big, but the limited space would allow Hughes to become a good player on the Fort Frye High School team. His parents served as an inspiration to him when he was recruited to play at Muskingum University.
“I wanted to make my mom and dad proud. For some reason, it became doing good in basketball. I’m not sure why that transferred that way,” Hughes says. “… My immediate family were businesspeople and great people, good-collar people. But going to college was a big deal. I was a little scared.”
Being thrilled that someone wanted to have him as an athlete, Hughes would be a dual athlete playing basketball and baseball as an undergraduate.
Believing to be better at baseball than basketball, Hughes felt inspired that a coach would talk to him and open the door for the basketball world.
At The Beginning
After finishing a few seasons at Muskingum, Hughes would go on to earn one of his first coaching positions as a senior. Coach Jim Burson taught Hughes a tremendous amount and offered him the freshman team coaching job.
“So here I am a senior coaching freshman,” Hughes says. “He threw me right in. I mean, he allowed me to be around the varsity program, which was very, very good that year. But also, I got to coach. I literally got to feel like, am I going to like this or not? And that was a pretty big step for him to trust me to do.”
Hughes went on to pursue a master’s in education at Miami University. Back when he was trying to become a collegiate coach, it was preferred to have a master’s degree to be hired.
At the time, he and his wife were engaged, and while she was finishing her last year at Muskingum, Hughes wanted to get his degree before they started their life together. That was the biggest inspiration while attending Miami.
As a graduate assistant to the Miami basketball team, teaching classes and doing a graduate assistantship in physical education, the RedHawks were good that year and even made it into the Sweet 16 in the NCAA Tournament. The opportunity with Miami opened another set of doors for Hughes, taking a job at Madison-Plains High School.
“I took over a team that had not done good but had aspirations of being good,” Hughes says. “I don’t think I was a very veteran coach at that moment, so it had a lot to do with the players, and the players really gave me an experience that inspired me probably the rest of my career.”
Mike Wilson, the captain of the Madison-Plains Golden Eagles, says Hughes brought a lot of discipline that they really needed for the team. Wilson says he thinks coaching at Madison-Plains is what got Dan’s career really started.
“It was just fortunate that he came in with the talent that he had,” Wilson says. “The coaching knowledge that he had, and saw what talent we had to work with … But that was what kicked off his career.”
Coaching in College
Having the full gambit of experiences as a head coach, Hughes knew he wanted to be a college coach at minimum. Spending part of his career at the University of Mount Union and Baldwin Wallace University, Hughes would serve as an assistant coach for the teams.
Fast forward to meeting Larry Gibson while at a tournament in Ohio University’s Convocation Center, Gibson would go on to offer Hughes a coaching job at the University of Toledo.
“It was like a third assistant, where you had a ceiling on what you could earn, but it gave me my foot into Toledo, and then he advanced me to be a full-time assistant,” Hughes says.
Staff changes were underway when Gibson took on the assistant athletic director job, and after spending time with the men’s basketball team, the position for the women’s basketball team opened for Hughes to take.
After discussing taking the job with his wife, Hughes says taking the job felt right.
Coaching with Toledo’s women’s team for one year, Hughes helped lead the team to win the Mid-American Conference Championship, and they went on to the NCAA Tournament.
Toledo’s women’s team was good that year, but that would only be the beginning of the transition into the WNBA.
WNBA
Hughes’s father, who ran a restaurant and owned a furniture store in Lowell, knew his son wanted to become a coach someday. When the opportunity to coach for the Charlotte Sting opened, his father told Hughes that it would be the ticket for him.
So, Hughes began to educate himself about the WNBA because it was very new at the time and just starting up.
Tapes were the lifeline for Hughes to learn and see what the vision was for the women’s team. Hughes says the basketball part of learning was fine, but learning the women’s game, the people and the players he had to learn quickly.
All things considered, Hughes was proud of the work he invested in the women’s game.
Marynell Meadors was the head coach of the Charlotte Sting at the time, and when Hughes first interviewed with her, she did not offer him the job.
“I said to her, you’ll be sorry if you don’t talk to me,” Hughes says. “Now that’s a pretty bold statement. So, she did, but she didn’t give me the job. But then about a year later, it didn’t work out with the person, she retired, and she came back, and I interviewed again.”
As a part of the learning experience of interviewing for the position, Hughes says that if he could give something to a male or female player, he wouldn’t give them talent but would give them persistence. He says persistence is what can separate players.
About halfway through his last season at Charlotte, the team was not doing very well. The Sting was in last place, and coaching changes were made, offering Hughes the position to be the interim head coach. In a nutshell, that was his trial period.
Now, what was interesting about it was that the point guard on that team was Dawn Staley, the current South Carolina Gamecocks head coach, and Hughes says that was a pretty good place to start.
Hughes kept his home back in Toledo, where his family stayed behind while he coached in Charlotte. So, when the opportunity to coach the Cleveland Rockers opened, Hughes took the job to be close to home. It gave him the chance to not move his daughter from the opportunities offered to her for her volleyball career.
Always a Cleveland guy at heart, the opportunity was too good for Hughes to pass up.
Tricia Binford, a former player for the Rockers and the current head coach of the Montana State Bobcats, says Hughes helped change the culture and always saw the potential in all the players.
“He was super positive. Even though he was intense, he just wanted the best for everybody. It’s really unique to have a coach that you could be a star, you could be a role player for the Rockers, but his respect was throughout, across the board,” Binford says. “You could be in any role, and you still had just tremendous respect, because he was just so good to people he cared about. He cared about the journey, cared about your success and he’s been one of my greatest mentors ever since.”
Binford says when she played for the Rockers, she was picked mid-season when the team was at its lowest point. The culture had not been brought in at that point, and she says it felt like the team was just going through the motions.
However, when Hughes took over, the team adopted a culture that allowed them to lock in and even win the ECC. Hughes served as an inspiration to everyone, maintaining relationships even long after the team disbanded.
Binford says she maintained contact because she respected him and his mind for the game.
“It’s one of those things that is, (when) I got into the profession, he was the first person I actually contacted when I was considering retiring,” Binford says. “… He’s got a lot of great information, but he also has just the understanding of the stressors, the pressures of a college coach and what that needs to look like from a life balance standpoint. Spiritually, I think we align really similarly there, as well as our culture and our values. He’s just been a great friend, a great mentor, and I will always reach out to him for just supporting getting better at what I do.”
The four years Hughes spent with Cleveland before the team disbanded were when his brand was established, as to what kind of coach he was and what the culture would look like if he were the coach. Hughes says he owes a lot to the four years he spent with Cleveland.
According to the Sports Business Journal, Cleveland may likely get a WNBA again by 2028.
“I was head coach, and we were the rockers,” Hughes says. “I’m a rock and roll guy, and we did things with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and I met a lot of people there, and I just identified, and I still do identify with Cleveland. So that broke my heart when you know [they disbanded], and then you’re kind of at a crossroads, what do you do? Right? And then San Antonio stepped in.”
The San Antonio Silver Stars called Hughes a year before Cleveland’s final season. At the time, taking the job did not seem like the right fit, and Hughes believed that he would not have been hired anyway. A year later, after San Antonio made staff changes, they were getting serious about the program.
After talking to them, it felt right then for Hughes to take the job and move to San Antonio. Something important to Hughes was for both of his children to start and finish school in one place, so moving to San Antonio allowed his son to have that opportunity.
Moving to Texas was tough, being a deep-seated Ohioan, but San Antonio was very welcoming to him and his family.
After spending 12 years with San Antonio and going to the championship once, toward the end of his time with the Stars, multiple players were retiring, and the team was suffering from a rebuild.
Transitioning from coaching players in their prime to retiring to starting it up again, Hughes watched the franchise become the now Las Vegas Aces.
In 2016, Hughes decided it was time to pass the baton and to step away from San Antonio. He spent a year away from the WNBA before taking on the head coaching position in Seattle. Something that drew him to Seattle were players like Breanna Stewart, Jewell Loyd and Sue Bird. Each one of them was a player Hughes had dreamed of coaching.
The more he dove into the thought of taking the position, he and his wife knew it was worth trying.
Something that Hughes succeeded at, which he had never done before his coaching career in Seattle was win a championship. He would go on to win not one, but two titles with the Seattle Storm.
After winning the first championship, he couldn’t help but think of the hard work of the players and the support of those around him.
“I went through a series of emotions. I knew we were good, and the coach in a lot of cases kind of has the best gauge. I also knew we were the best team. The night before what would be the game we won the championship; I could feel doubt coming in,” Hughes says. “I tried for 15 years to win a championship. I kind of kept reaching for that in my confidence. Winning that was an absolute testament to the players that I had believed in. It was also a testament to being persistent. I just (remember) wanting to find my wife. She was the person I wanted to see.”
On to the Olympics
After spending time in Seattle and winning two championships, it was time for Hughes to retire from the WNBA. He had gone through COVID-19, battled cancer and had the Olympics coming up. The groundwork had been laid for the next Storm coach, and everyone thought it would be the best timing for the transition.
In 2019, his former point guard and USA Women’s Basketball National Team head coach Dawn Staley selected Hughes to serve as an assistant coach for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, where he would culminate in a Gold Medal.
“When Dawn Staley was the head coach, and I had a background with Dawn,” Hughes says. “I had coached Dawn, and so that was a wonderful honor. So, then I spent the last five years with USA basketball as a coach.”
Winning the gold was when Hughes knew it was the last time he was going to be an active coach, on a staff or with a team. He knew that was it, and he was overwhelmed with emotions. He couldn’t help but think of the people that were really important in his life.
“I thought of my mom and dad, you know, and my mom was still alive,” Hughes says. “My dad had passed, and I just thought, well, how great would that have been for him, who served in the Air Force, who was very much my biggest supporter to seeing this moment. But you think of people like that, people that really had invested in your journey.”
Retirement and Reflection
Currently, Hughes works as a chief basketball advisor for a software company called VReps Basketball, which revolutionizes basketball training and strategy with innovative technology.
According to the company site, it enhances the game by combining traditional coaching and interactive digital tools. Hughes also did broadcast for ESPN up until 2024, where he consults anyone who calls.
Hughes was also inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame in April 2024, which was a really special moment in his life. A two-time WNBA Champion and Gold Medal-winning coach, Hughes is the only coach in WNBA history to take four different franchises to the playoffs and advance all four teams.
With a record of 281-311, he claims the third-most wins all-time in the league. He was also twice named WNBA Coach of the Year, first in 2001 and again in 2007.
Eight of the players on one of his first teams, Madison-Plains, even came to support Hughes when he was inducted. It was amazing for Hughes to see them all those years later. Wilson says he was the one who spearheaded getting the group together to support Hughes’s success.
“Everybody had a great time,” Wilson says. “I know Dan was happy to have everybody there, but that was quite an honor for us that were there to get to see that. He’s done well for himself. I mean, he’s made it, and it all started at little Madison-Plains.”
Someone that Hughes made known in the life he has led; it could not get done without the support of his wife. She was the most influential person and his greatest assistance, consistently in his life through everything.
“We were a team, and she played a role that it’s hard to deny I would not have been nearly as good without her she did it all,” Hughes says. “She did it all and she was honest with me. The things that my kids and my wife gave me were a reflection of myself. That was when they would tell me when I was wrong, and that you need someone like that in your life.”
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