Glenn Schmidt knows a little about what motivated Stan Hughey.
Over the years, Schmidt’s Starkville Academy girls basketball teams tangled many times with Hughey’s Oak Hill Academy squads. Every time, Schmidt found Hughey’s Lady Raiders well prepared, tenacious, and hungry for a win — just like their coach. After the games, Schmidt and Hughey didn’t need to talk for hours to catch up or to exchange stories because they took comfort in the fact that they shared a special bond only coaches can appreciate.
That’s why Schmidt was just one of the people saddened Sunday to learn of Hughey’s death.
Hughey, 55, died Sunday. The West Point Police Department issued a press release Monday saying it was investigating a fatal shooting that left one man dead in what appears to be a self-inflicted wound. Police chief Tim Brinkley said investigators were dispatched to 3080 Lone Oak Drive for a welfare check. Upon arrival at the residence, they found the home wasn’t locked and the body of a man inside. Emergency personnel and the county medical examiner were called to the scene. The man was pronounced dead.
Police declined to identify the individual who called authorities. Police also declined to say the man was Hughey. However, his residence is listed as 3080 Lone Oak Drive.
Schmidt found out Sunday afternoon following her team’s practice. Her thoughts immediately went out to Hughey’s players. She knows how special each of them was to the longtime coach.
“We’ve lost a great friend and a great coach,” Schmidt said Monday. “The basketball world has lost a great basketball coach. We are saddened because we have lost someone so dear to us. The kids he has coached, they won’t understand, and neither do I, but you pray for them because I know how much he loved them. He talked about his players constantly. They need to know that.”
Hughey won 453 games in 20 years as the head girls basketball coach at Oak Hill Academy before resigning to take the same job at Heritage Academy. Hughey didn’t coach a game at Heritage Academy. He resigned from his job there to become the girls basketball coach at East Webster High School in Maben earlier this year.
He started his coaching career at Mathiston School, which later combined with Cumberland to form East Webster High. He later coached at Kirk Academy, where Ronnie Aldy was a mentor.
Schmidt said Hughey was quick to give credit to his players and others for his teams’ success. She said Hughey’s Lady Raiders were so successful because his “old-school” ways stressed discipline and integrity.
“The ability of a man to transform his passion for a game into the girls who played for him and see it on the court was the trademark of Stan Hughey,” Schmidt said. “He had the ability to put the passion and competitiveness he had into his players and then onto the court. To get it onto the court and feel it when you were playing against him, that was Stan Hughey. His passion came out on the court through his players.”
Former Leake Academy girls basketball coach Doyle Wolverton was another longtime friend and adversary. Wolverton said he texted a Bible verse to Hughey every day since February, including one Monday from Proverbs 30:5 that read, “Every word of God is flawless; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.”
Wolverton said Hughey was “upset” about changing schools, as anyone would be, and that he thought Hughey was doing better with it. He said he exchanged texts with Hughey on Christmas Day and told him that he loved him.
“First and foremost Stan was all about the kids,” Wolverton said. “He cared about them deeply, and he wanted them to do the best they could do. He tried to put them into situations they could achieve their goals and his goals. He gave them the fire and the want to.
“He had a heart of gold. He gave everything he could. It is just a sad thing for me right now.”
Wolverton said Hughey was an assistant coach at Kirk Academy when he first met him in the early 1990s. In that time, he grew to understand Hughey’s love for his players and his passion for basketball. He agreed with Schmidt that Hughey was an “old-school” coach who knew nothing else but to give his best at whatever he did.
“He loved those kids with all of his heart,” Wolverton said. “He would have given his life in a second for them. That was just the way he was. I have nothing but good memories of him. I have good memories and a lot of respect for everything he did there, and for his whole life. He had a good life. He was a good man.”
East Webster High Principal Bill Brand knew Hughey, who taught social studies at the school, only for a short time, but he saw how quickly the new coach bonded with his players. Hughey’s girls basketball team was undefeated entering this week. He said the school would make a decision in the next couple of days on how to proceed for the rest of the season.
“He was all basketball,” Brand said. “That is what he lived for and that is what he was all about. He definitely showed it to our kids.”
Oak Hill Academy coach Marion Bratton said Hughey’s love for basketball was like a marriage. Bratton, who coaches the baseball team at Oak Hill Academy, spent many years sharing student-athletes who played fast-pitch softball and girls basketball at the Class AA school in West Point that is a member of the Mississippi Association of Independent Schools. He said his daughter, Allison Bratton Carter, played for Hughey in the mid-to-late ’90s and was one of hundreds of players pushed to be their best by Hughey. He said Hughey made an “immediate” impact at Oak Hill Academy when he arrived and took the school’s girls basketball program to another level.
“Like all great coaches, he didn’t always make people happy, but he always strived and pushed players to be their best,” Bratton said. “A lot of them look back now and realize he is not here anymore, but they won’t forget him.
“Stan Hughey prepared his players for the game of life. He believed in the sport, and he just kept pushing them to be the best regardless of whether he had the talent or not. He definitely believed in what he was doing.”
Follow Dispatch sports editor Adam Minichino on Twitter @ctsportseditor
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 37 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.