Robert Hughes' first UIL champion named an honor team at boys state basketball

Hall of fame Fort Worth Dunbar boys basketball coach Robert Hughes and the 1993 Wildcats — his first UIL champion — will be honored Saturday at the state tournament in San Antonio..

"I'm honor-bound. I have to be there," said Hughes, 89, who last September was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, Mass. "That's just my feeling. You asked those kids to do so much. I have to do this for them."

The '93 team posted a 36-4 record, and beat Converse Judson, 74-64, to win the Class 5A championship.At the time 5A was the largest classification.

"Good lord we were loaded. We practiced loaded," Hughes recalled. "The thing that made them so good was the fact that we just worked. We were going to run, we ran every day. We weren't going to tire out."

Hughes, who retired in 2004 with 1,333 career wins, still tops nationally among boys coaches, also won a UIL title in 2003 and three Prairie View Interscholastic League titles with Fort Worth I.M. Terrell during the days of racial segregation.

A brief ceremony will be held on the Alamodome basketball court during halftime of the 4A championship, which starts at 7 p.m.

Joining Dunbar will be the '93 Class 3A title team from Southlake Carroll.

"We put the word out and I think several guys going to show up," said '93 Dragons coach Ken Cook, who stepped down from coaching three years ago. "It's hard to believe it's been that long. It's kind of a neat deal."

This story was originally published March 8, 2018 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Robert Hughes' first UIL champion named an honor team at boys state basketball."