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| Colorado Aggies.Com |
| Dedicated to the Preservation of Athletic History at Colorado State University |
| Hughes 100: Celebrating the Legacy of Harry Hughes: Part 1 of 12 |
The legend of Harry Walker Hughes began in Missouri on a DeKalb County farm on
October 9, 1887 when the man that changed athletics at the school known today as
Colorado State University was born. Sometime around 1895, his parents Roland and
Lena Walker Hughes, moved their family 435 miles to Norman, Oklahoma Territory
for a better life near the five year-old University of Oklahoma campus.
At the age of seven, young Harry Hughes watched the university men play the game
of football for the first time in 1895. The boy continued to show great interest in the
game of football along with other sports the college men participated in such as track
and baseball. He closely followed the school’s sports teams and by 1903 entered into
the school as a sub-freshman at the age of 16.
By 1904, Hughes enrolled in the university as a freshman and began participating in
the college sports; most notably football. The 1904 season saw Hughes playing for
the Boomers’ coach Fred Ewing as a halfback. At the time the Boomers still did not
belong to an organized football conference, playing town teams, military groups and
high schools. The Kansas and Texas games were the only contests against major
colleges.
Hughes showed great athletic talent at Oklahoma as a fast football runner and in
track as a star in the heavy weights such as the hammer and shot. It was in 1905
when Hughes received his greatest influence in athletics at OU. Bennie Owen, a
former head coach at Kansas schools Washburn College and Bethany College,
arrived in Norman to begin a 30-year career at OU coaching football, baseball and
basketball before becoming the full-time administrator.
Owen, a pupil of legendary Michigan coach Fielding Yost when he was at Nebraska
in 1898, helped change football at OU and the team amassed a 7-2 record, the best in
school history to that date, in the 1905 season. In one memorable 1905 game,
Hughes leaped over the entire University of Texas line and ran nearly 100 yards
before being tackled at the five-yard-line. In the days of 105-yard fields, the Boomers
were unable to score near the goal line, but eventually forced a safety on Texas and
won their first game against UT 2-0.
Harry Hughes continued to excel at football, baseball and track. While he was at the
University of Oklahoma, Hughes collected seven records in track and became the top
player on the football team. Hughes, a physical education student, learned from
Coach Owen everything he could and by his senior year of 1907-08, became the
head football coach at Norman High School.
It was in the fall of 1907 that Hughes is reported to have suffered an economic
hardship and had to cut back his hours of study. With only 12 credit hours and
working as football coach at Norman High School, Hughes was removed from the
Oklahoma football team early in the season due to his shortened school credits. He
went on to claim the Oklahoma State High School football championship in 1907 and
in 1908 graduated from OU with his degree in Physical Education.
Following graduation, Hughes became the “physical director" at the Oklahoma
Central State Normal School, known today at Central Oklahoma University.
According to Central Oklahoma Sports Information Director Mike Kirk, Hughes is
found in the 1909 Bronze Book, (yearbook of the school) as the physical director.
Later reports say that he also coached some sports while in Edmund, but it is unclear
what sports he coached while at Central Oklahoma. Hughes stayed there from the
fall of 1908 until the spring of 1910.
In 1910, Harry Hughes returned to his alma mater to become the first assistant
football coach in the history of OU football. He joined up with his mentor, Bennie
Owen, and also coached gymnastics. During the 1910-11 school year, Hughes
learned from Owen many important aspects that he would eventually carry on to
Colorado. However, Hughes was not fully satisfied with being an assistant coach and
often thought of becoming a professional bicycle racer.
In April of 1911, his old school friend, Mrs. James Crabb, visited her parents in
Norman for a few days. Mrs. Crabb lived in Fort Collins where her husband taught
at the Colorado Agricultural College. Mrs Crabb and Harry Hughes talked about how
the Colorado Aggies were in need of a new director of athletics and someone who
would stay for a while. The latest athletic director had not lasted one school year and
was scheduled to leave at the end of the spring 1911 semester. She convinced
Hughes that he should apply for the position and move to Fort Collins where he
would at least know her and her husband.
Among the many applicants for the position, Hughes was accepted as the newest
director of athletics and coach of all sports. Harry Hughes resigned from the
University of Oklahoma, married his long-time sweetheart, Minnie Lee Edwards, and
on September 2, 1911 arrived in Fort Collins on the train.
Hughes officially began work on Tuesday, September 5, 1911, following the Labor
Day weekend. He immediately assessed the athletic situation at CAC and it was not
ideal. The athletic field was all dirt and located in a poorly drained area of the
campus. The grandstands, made of wood, were rotting and the locker rooms were
barely large enough to accommodate his men.
Besides horrible facilities, Hughes had to deal with attitudes among the players and
citizens of Fort Collins. The September 13, 1911 Collegian had Hughes on the front
page with an article written by the new coach. He pleaded with the students to come
out for all athletics and said, “We appeal to every student in this college to take one
recitation each day at some one of the physical exercises.” Hughes went on to say,
“Educate your bodies along with your minds and you are sure of success.”
He knew he had a lot of raw material to work with and after dismissing all
“professional athletes” (an athlete either paid to play for a college or one that was
only enrolled in the school to play on athletic teams) Hughes built his athletic
department from the ground up. The last of his article stated, “It takes time to grow
a tree and it takes time to develop a football player.”
Perhaps Hughes’ last sentence was a warning to the fans of what the 1911 season of
football was about to become. The team would not only lose every game of the
season, but they could not even score one point in any intercollegiate games. They
beat high school and military teams, but those were only considered practice games
for the day. Hughes even told Fort Collins District Attorney and future Colorado
Governor George Carlson and his group of friends to stay away from him along with
the team so that they would quit acting as “assistant coaches”. Hughes had a plan
and he did not worry about winning games as much as changing attitudes about
athletics.
One of the most notable changes in the 1911-12 school year was that the student
newspaper, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, posted athletic news on the front page
of every paper. This was a major change from previous years when news of sports
was buried deep in the newspaper.
Hughes also set out to rebuild the athletic constitution and published a new one in
October of 1911 along with the plans to build a new athletic field in the spring of
1912. He took a fast-track approach to athletics and mapped out among other things
how much money was to be spent out of the budget on each sport. In Article XII
section 9, it stated that the Aggie “A” letter is to be “yellow or gold in color, placed
on a green sweater or jersey.”
Hughes wasted no time as the new coach of all sports and once football season
ended, he moved directly into coaching basketball at the Old Main gym. In January
of 1912, Hughes once again pleaded to the students to come out for basketball, just
as he did in the fall for football and all sports.
By February of 1912, students wrote in their paper that they felt Hughes should
allow the Aggies’ star pitcher, Claude Ramey, to act as the baseball coach so that
Hughes could concentrate on track in the spring. This did not sit well with the young
and energetic Harry Hughes as he prepared for the start of both track and baseball
seasons.
By the March 19, 1912 issue, a student sports reporter wrote in the paper, “Some do
not like Coach Hughes because they cannot run things and because he causes the
men to get in the games and practice and practice consistently.” The article summed
things up and stated, “There is no doubt who the coach is” and that “he would not
allow any back-talk.” Harry Hughes coached baseball and track despite what others
wanted him to do in his first season.
By May of 1912, Hughes brought 14 men to the conference track meet, something
the school had never done before. He continued to be stern with his players, but
always mentored them as he transitioned athletics into more than just something the
men did for fun.
The exclamation point to his first year at Colorado Agricultural College is when
Hughes and Dr. Lory declared a holiday in May, 1912 and shut down the school to
build the new athletic grounds. Later named Colorado Field, the grounds located on
the former potato fields of the experiment station boasted a football stadium complete
with 1,000 steel bleacher seats, state of the art locker room (Club House) with
showers for both home and visiting teams, cinder track, basketball and volleyball
courts, practice field for football and a second practice field that later became the
baseball diamond.
In his first year Harry Hughes took the Colorado Aggies from some of the worst
athletic facilities in the state to the finest in the Rocky Mountain Region. Once his
first season was over, it became time to focus on winning games and eventually
conference championships.
Part 2 - Building the Aggies
October 9, 1887 when the man that changed athletics at the school known today as
Colorado State University was born. Sometime around 1895, his parents Roland and
Lena Walker Hughes, moved their family 435 miles to Norman, Oklahoma Territory
for a better life near the five year-old University of Oklahoma campus.
At the age of seven, young Harry Hughes watched the university men play the game
of football for the first time in 1895. The boy continued to show great interest in the
game of football along with other sports the college men participated in such as track
and baseball. He closely followed the school’s sports teams and by 1903 entered into
the school as a sub-freshman at the age of 16.
By 1904, Hughes enrolled in the university as a freshman and began participating in
the college sports; most notably football. The 1904 season saw Hughes playing for
the Boomers’ coach Fred Ewing as a halfback. At the time the Boomers still did not
belong to an organized football conference, playing town teams, military groups and
high schools. The Kansas and Texas games were the only contests against major
colleges.
Hughes showed great athletic talent at Oklahoma as a fast football runner and in
track as a star in the heavy weights such as the hammer and shot. It was in 1905
when Hughes received his greatest influence in athletics at OU. Bennie Owen, a
former head coach at Kansas schools Washburn College and Bethany College,
arrived in Norman to begin a 30-year career at OU coaching football, baseball and
basketball before becoming the full-time administrator.
Owen, a pupil of legendary Michigan coach Fielding Yost when he was at Nebraska
in 1898, helped change football at OU and the team amassed a 7-2 record, the best in
school history to that date, in the 1905 season. In one memorable 1905 game,
Hughes leaped over the entire University of Texas line and ran nearly 100 yards
before being tackled at the five-yard-line. In the days of 105-yard fields, the Boomers
were unable to score near the goal line, but eventually forced a safety on Texas and
won their first game against UT 2-0.
Harry Hughes continued to excel at football, baseball and track. While he was at the
University of Oklahoma, Hughes collected seven records in track and became the top
player on the football team. Hughes, a physical education student, learned from
Coach Owen everything he could and by his senior year of 1907-08, became the
head football coach at Norman High School.
It was in the fall of 1907 that Hughes is reported to have suffered an economic
hardship and had to cut back his hours of study. With only 12 credit hours and
working as football coach at Norman High School, Hughes was removed from the
Oklahoma football team early in the season due to his shortened school credits. He
went on to claim the Oklahoma State High School football championship in 1907 and
in 1908 graduated from OU with his degree in Physical Education.
Following graduation, Hughes became the “physical director" at the Oklahoma
Central State Normal School, known today at Central Oklahoma University.
According to Central Oklahoma Sports Information Director Mike Kirk, Hughes is
found in the 1909 Bronze Book, (yearbook of the school) as the physical director.
Later reports say that he also coached some sports while in Edmund, but it is unclear
what sports he coached while at Central Oklahoma. Hughes stayed there from the
fall of 1908 until the spring of 1910.
In 1910, Harry Hughes returned to his alma mater to become the first assistant
football coach in the history of OU football. He joined up with his mentor, Bennie
Owen, and also coached gymnastics. During the 1910-11 school year, Hughes
learned from Owen many important aspects that he would eventually carry on to
Colorado. However, Hughes was not fully satisfied with being an assistant coach and
often thought of becoming a professional bicycle racer.
In April of 1911, his old school friend, Mrs. James Crabb, visited her parents in
Norman for a few days. Mrs. Crabb lived in Fort Collins where her husband taught
at the Colorado Agricultural College. Mrs Crabb and Harry Hughes talked about how
the Colorado Aggies were in need of a new director of athletics and someone who
would stay for a while. The latest athletic director had not lasted one school year and
was scheduled to leave at the end of the spring 1911 semester. She convinced
Hughes that he should apply for the position and move to Fort Collins where he
would at least know her and her husband.
Among the many applicants for the position, Hughes was accepted as the newest
director of athletics and coach of all sports. Harry Hughes resigned from the
University of Oklahoma, married his long-time sweetheart, Minnie Lee Edwards, and
on September 2, 1911 arrived in Fort Collins on the train.
Hughes officially began work on Tuesday, September 5, 1911, following the Labor
Day weekend. He immediately assessed the athletic situation at CAC and it was not
ideal. The athletic field was all dirt and located in a poorly drained area of the
campus. The grandstands, made of wood, were rotting and the locker rooms were
barely large enough to accommodate his men.
Besides horrible facilities, Hughes had to deal with attitudes among the players and
citizens of Fort Collins. The September 13, 1911 Collegian had Hughes on the front
page with an article written by the new coach. He pleaded with the students to come
out for all athletics and said, “We appeal to every student in this college to take one
recitation each day at some one of the physical exercises.” Hughes went on to say,
“Educate your bodies along with your minds and you are sure of success.”
He knew he had a lot of raw material to work with and after dismissing all
“professional athletes” (an athlete either paid to play for a college or one that was
only enrolled in the school to play on athletic teams) Hughes built his athletic
department from the ground up. The last of his article stated, “It takes time to grow
a tree and it takes time to develop a football player.”
Perhaps Hughes’ last sentence was a warning to the fans of what the 1911 season of
football was about to become. The team would not only lose every game of the
season, but they could not even score one point in any intercollegiate games. They
beat high school and military teams, but those were only considered practice games
for the day. Hughes even told Fort Collins District Attorney and future Colorado
Governor George Carlson and his group of friends to stay away from him along with
the team so that they would quit acting as “assistant coaches”. Hughes had a plan
and he did not worry about winning games as much as changing attitudes about
athletics.
One of the most notable changes in the 1911-12 school year was that the student
newspaper, The Rocky Mountain Collegian, posted athletic news on the front page
of every paper. This was a major change from previous years when news of sports
was buried deep in the newspaper.
Hughes also set out to rebuild the athletic constitution and published a new one in
October of 1911 along with the plans to build a new athletic field in the spring of
1912. He took a fast-track approach to athletics and mapped out among other things
how much money was to be spent out of the budget on each sport. In Article XII
section 9, it stated that the Aggie “A” letter is to be “yellow or gold in color, placed
on a green sweater or jersey.”
Hughes wasted no time as the new coach of all sports and once football season
ended, he moved directly into coaching basketball at the Old Main gym. In January
of 1912, Hughes once again pleaded to the students to come out for basketball, just
as he did in the fall for football and all sports.
By February of 1912, students wrote in their paper that they felt Hughes should
allow the Aggies’ star pitcher, Claude Ramey, to act as the baseball coach so that
Hughes could concentrate on track in the spring. This did not sit well with the young
and energetic Harry Hughes as he prepared for the start of both track and baseball
seasons.
By the March 19, 1912 issue, a student sports reporter wrote in the paper, “Some do
not like Coach Hughes because they cannot run things and because he causes the
men to get in the games and practice and practice consistently.” The article summed
things up and stated, “There is no doubt who the coach is” and that “he would not
allow any back-talk.” Harry Hughes coached baseball and track despite what others
wanted him to do in his first season.
By May of 1912, Hughes brought 14 men to the conference track meet, something
the school had never done before. He continued to be stern with his players, but
always mentored them as he transitioned athletics into more than just something the
men did for fun.
The exclamation point to his first year at Colorado Agricultural College is when
Hughes and Dr. Lory declared a holiday in May, 1912 and shut down the school to
build the new athletic grounds. Later named Colorado Field, the grounds located on
the former potato fields of the experiment station boasted a football stadium complete
with 1,000 steel bleacher seats, state of the art locker room (Club House) with
showers for both home and visiting teams, cinder track, basketball and volleyball
courts, practice field for football and a second practice field that later became the
baseball diamond.
In his first year Harry Hughes took the Colorado Aggies from some of the worst
athletic facilities in the state to the finest in the Rocky Mountain Region. Once his
first season was over, it became time to focus on winning games and eventually
conference championships.
Part 2 - Building the Aggies
| The Man from Oklahoma |
| Silver Spruce |
| Harry Walker Hughes was a star halfback on the University of Oklahoma football team from 1904 to 1907. He also held seven records in track at OU before he graduated in 1908. |
| Bennie Owen arrived at the University of Oklahoma in 1905 and quickly became Harry Hughes' greatest mentor. In 1910, Hughes served as the first assistant coach in OU football history with Owen as the head coach. |
| The 1911 Colorado Aggies football team with first-year head coach Harry Hughes (top row, far left) as their mentor. The team not only lost every intercollegiate game they played in, but did not score one point against an intercollegiate rival. Despite the dismal record, the players were pleased with the actions of their new coach. |
| Football at Durkee Field in 1911 was not pleasurable on the dirt field. Fans also did not enjoy the rotten wooden stands that stood on the west side next to the rail road tracks. Hughes only coached one season at this field before the construction of Colorado Field in 1912. |
| This photo shows the Old Main Gym in January of 1912 during one of Harry Hughes' first games as basketball coach. Hughes coached all four intercollegiate sports during his first three years at Colorado Agricultural College. (Below) The new athletic field Hughes built in 1912 was known as Colorado Field and home of the Aggies and Rams for 55 years. |
| Silver Spruce |
| Wikipedia |
| Silver Spruce |
| Silver Spruce |
| Ft Collins History Museum |