They say when one door closes, another opens, but Dan Hughes knows that is not true.
Sometimes, it blows off the hinges.
If anyone appreciates the whims of a sporting life, it is Hughes, the 63-year-old coach of the freshly crowned WNBA champion Seattle Storm.
You think the guy who has coached more WNBA games than anybody coming out of retirement to capture his elusive title is a cool story?
Go back to how he came upon the women’s game at all.
It was the spring of 1996, and Hughes was an assistant men’s coach at the University of Toledo.
READ MORE: Former Waite star Howard earns WNBA crown
Well, former assistant.
That year, Rockets coach Larry Gipson decided he had enough of Division I basketball and resigned, leaving his staff at a crossroads. Hughes was 41, another nameless grinder in a business of thousands of them, having climbed from assistant jobs at Division III Baldwin Wallace and Mount Union to Toledo, where he spent five seasons.
A lifeline soon arrived from Valparaiso, where legendary coach Homer Drew offered a position.
It was a dream opportunity.
“Those were the Bryce Drew years,” Hughes said, nodding to the sharpshooting star best known for his buzzer beater in the first round of Valpo’s Sweet 16 run in 1998.
But fate works in funny ways.
“I respectfully declined,” he said.
Turned out, the easygoing Hughes was so well-liked and respected at Toledo that — even though new coach Stan Joplin did not retain the previous assistants — nobody wanted to see him leave.
That included those on the women’s staff, which had an opening of its own after assistant Jodi Steyer resigned to begin a family. Steyer told her friend he should consider the job, talked him into it, then brought the idea to Rockets women’s coach Mark Ehlen.
“I had a funny suspicion that they had conspired behind my back,” Ehlen said, laughing. “I remember going into his office as soon as Jodi told me he might have an interest, and as soon as I asked him, it was an emphatic, ‘Yes!’ I just wish recruiting was always that easy. He clearly had thought this out and knew he and his family wanted to stay in Toledo.”
For Hughes, the move across the hall opened a door he otherwise would not have considered and, yada, yada, yada, there he was last week, wordless and in tears, the lion of the WNBA at last a champion.
“Never would have believed it,” he told me the other day.
OK, so we might have glossed over it a little there.
Back to 1996.
Hughes knew the mid-career jump from the men’s side to the women’s — or the other way around — had few precedents, but he appreciated good basketball is good basketball. He proved the same deft tactician for the UT women, and was just as relatable to the players, if not more so.
“It was like I was in my sweet spot,” Hughes said. “It came to me naturally. There was an instinctive process happening that’s hard to explain. You don’t know where you’re going to find your groove, but I really quickly felt at home.”
The Rockets that season kept rolling, winning 27 games and the MAC title on their way to a third straight NCAA tourney trip. Ehlen, then in his second year, called it a “magical” winter and enjoyed having Hughes along for the ride.
“If you’re a basketball coach, you’re a basketball coach,” he said, “and, boy, the kids respected him right away.”
Hughes could have stayed at Toledo forever, but after the year, another unexpected offer arose. Upon the urging of Gipson — who had a contact in the soon-to-debut WNBA — the Charlotte Sting hired Hughes as an assistant.
By the next season, he was the team’s head coach. An unmatched 555 games later, the rest was indeed history.
A native of Lowell, a village a half-court shot from West Virginia, Hughes returned to Ohio to coach the Cleveland Rockers from 2000-03, then, after the franchise closed shop, moved to San Antonio.
Championship or not, he retired in 2016 absent any regrets.
“I had a meaningful career to that point,” said Hughes, who led 10 playoff teams and was twice named WNBA coach of the year. “Incredible moments. I wasn’t searching for something I didn’t have.”
Still, what was one more twist in a career defined by them?
He answered the call from Seattle, a franchise coming off four consecutive losing seasons but primed for a quantum hoops leap with the right touch.
Hughes knew it. With a who’s who of league stars — including Waite grad Natasha Howard, 16-year veteran Sue Bird, and league MVP Breanna Stewart — he earned their trust and encouraged them to play freely. A little more defense wouldn’t hurt, either.
All the Storm did was go 26-8 and sweep Washington in last week’s Finals.
For Hughes, one door closing had ripped another off the hinges.
Again.
“I’m beyond words,” he said. “There’s another lesson in there that you just want to keep your eyes open in life. I didn’t see this happening, but the joy i’m feeling right now with what this team did and seeing them accomplish this, I just feel blessed. I’m a very fortunate man.”
Contact David Briggs at: dbriggs@theblade.com, 419-724-6084, or on Twitter @DBriggsBlade.
First Published September 18, 2018, 8:43 p.m.
