Longtime Franklin College tennis coach Rusty Hughes, left, is a volunteer assistant for the women’s team this spring.
As a 5-year-old, Russell Steven Hughes was taught the game of chess by his paternal grandfather Taid, a professional boxer who came to the United States from his home country of Wales.
Some seven years later, the kid proved proficient enough at ping-pong to be invited to a state tournament.
Eventually, these passions would become intertwined.
Known most of his life as Rusty Hughes, the longtime Franklin College tennis coach recently announced that this spring will be his last one as the head of the women’s program that he’s led since 1988. Hughes also coached the Grizzlies’ men’s team from 2000 to 2019.
The 72-year-old plans to continue working with the women as a volunteer assistant, but after countless bus rides over the years to Manchester, Transylvania, Hanover and other destinations, Hughes decided that it’s time to scale back.
“I had bypass surgery last August. They asked me if I would come back and do the fall season,” said Hughes, a 1970 graduate of Franklin High School who played two seasons of tennis at Vincennes University before completing his degree at IUPUI.
“It’s not because I don’t want to coach. It’s that I don’t want to travel.”
Hughes also continues to coach the high school girls team at Franklin, a role he’s also held since the late 1980s. His current Grizzly Cub squad is the 97th team he’s coached in his career, counting the years at Franklin College and the four seasons he presided over the high school boys.
To achieve the century mark, Hughes would have to guide the Grizzly Cub girls through the spring of 2027.
“I don’t know if I’ll hit 100 or not, but we’ll see,” Hughes said. “It would be kind of cool, but that is not who I am. (Milestones) is not why I do it.”
The many honors occupying space on Hughes’ coaching résumé include being named HCAC women’s coach of the year four times, and earning men’s conference co-coach of the year in 2005. Those four women’s teams — 1998, 2000, 2002 and 2012 — won regular-season conference titles, with the last of those also making the Grizzlies’ lone NCAA tournament appearance. Hughes was inducted into the Indiana Tennis Hall of Fame in 2017.
Hughes’ journey began in Walkerton, a town of 2,100 residents located a few miles southwest of South Bend, as the youngest of Bob and Dorothy Hughes’ three sons. When Rusty was 2, the family moved to Franklin as Bob, who had previously worked as an engineer for Studebaker, took a job as Allison Transmission in Indianapolis.
His ping-pong exploits as a pre-teen were the reason that Rusty started playing tennis in the first place. His knowledge of chess would ultimately influence the manner in which he strategized when his teams were competing.
“I started playing tennis the summer leading up to my junior year of high school, and just couldn’t get enough of it. In those days, you played singles and doubles,” Hughes said. “One match in college, I got beat, 32-30, in the first set because there were no tiebreakers back then. The match took five and a half hours.”
Hughes embraced the concept of coaching tennis, a way for him to help shape young lives and grow the sport locally. The coach estimates approximately 90 of his former players now coach tennis at the middle school, high school or collegiate level — a list that includes current University of Dayton’s men’s coach Ryan Meyer, a 2008 Franklin College graduate.
“I wouldn’t be where I am without him,” Meyer said.
“When I was a little kid, Little League baseball was the most important thing in my life, and those coaches were mentors for me,” Hughes said. “Tennis was a game I thought I knew, and I saw the tennis court as a chess board.
“To me, tennis is all about positioning, especially in doubles. By your positioning, you can take something away from your opponent. But there’s also something that you’re giving up.”
Who knew playing chess and ping-pong as a youth would help Hughes cast such a wide net in the sport of tennis in central Indiana and beyond?
Former Franklin College football coach Mike Leonard laughs while telling the story of how he was coaching Hanover men’s tennis in 2002 when he first crossed paths with Hughes.
“We’re having the conference tournament at IUPUI, and Rusty ends up finding a mistake in the scoring that gave Hanover the championship. Right then, I became a big Rusty Hughes fan,” Leonard said. “The following year, I came to Franklin College, and he was just Mr. Genuine. Everybody loves Rusty.
“He’s just a tennis junkie, and all the kids he’s helped through the years, it’s just amazing.”
The grandson of Taid — a man who came to the states around 1910 after working the coal mines of Wales — has left his mark.
