Cal Poly Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1987
The "Silver Fox" brought prominence to Cal Poly football with his generous and creative concepts. He was head football coach from 1950-61, and his famous 1953 squad was undefeated, untied (9-0-0) and led the nation in scoring. His teams won 73 games, losing 37 times and one tie, claiming six California Collegiate Athletic Association titles. He left Cal Poly with a .662 winning percentage.
Roy also served as director of athletics for one year and men's golf coach for one season at Cal Poly and was heavily involved with the NCAA television committee. He is a charter inductee in Cal Poly's Athletics Hall of Fame.
Born in the Mission district of San Francisco, Hughes is a graduate of Polytechnic High School in San Francisco, where he played football, basketball, baseball and swimming. He played two years of Olympic Club basketball and one year at College of San Mateo, where he earned all-state honors.
Hughes was a member of the University of Oregon men's basketball team from 1927 to 1929 and also played football for the Ducks, graduating in 1930. He served as the freshman basketball coach at Oregon, completed his graduate work at UC Berkeley and then began his teaching career in physical education at San Francisco High School.
Hughes became an assistant football coach and head basketball coach at Monterey High School in 1935, then assumed the same two positions at Menlo Junior College in 1938. He served as head football coach at Menlo from 1941-43 and 1946-49 before coming to Cal Poly. Between the two coaching stints at Menlo, Hughes entered the U.S. Navy in 1942 after World War II broke out and was a lieutenant commander at St. Mary's Pre-Flight School. He then transfered to the Carrier Aircraft Service Unit at Los Alamitos Naval Air Station and also served at Kahawi on the Hawaiian island of Maui during the war.
Hughes returned to Menlo in 1946 and compiled an overall record of 44-9-6 in football. Cal Poly president Julian A. McPhee hired Hughes prior to the 1950 season and, after a 3-7 mark in the first year, Hughes guided the Mustangs to nine consecutive winning campaigns, including the infamous 1953 squad's 9-0 record which outscored its opponents 395-65, before he was involved in the 1960 plane crash which claimed the life of 16 of his players and injured 19 others.
Hughes retired from coaching football following the 1961 season, which remarkably posted a 5-3 record one year after the accident in Toledo, and taught physical education and health classes for 10 more years before retiring from Cal Poly in 1971.
Hughes passed away in San Luis Obispo in 1991 at age 86.
