Roger Hughes needed to be fired. There is no sugarcoating the issues or dancing around the truth. After 10 seasons as the football head coach, Hughes’ time calling the shots at Princeton had to end.
But in the week and a half since Director of Athletics Gary Walters ’67 made the official announcement, the debate is still raging. And firmly ingrained in that debate are a lot of misconceptions.
I have heard attacks on Hughes as a person and claims that he is unfit to coach at this level. A commenter on the Nov. 23 Daily Princetonian article about Hughes’ firing article wrote, “All Hughes was was a talking head to pull donations from alumni and act like a used car salesman towards potential recruits.”
Wrong.
And I have heard grumblings that Walters was trigger-happy in his decision: that firing a coach after a few losing seasons is unjustified.
Wrong.
This is not about a bad man, and it certainly isn’t purely about winning and losing. Hughes was as gracious as they come, and every coach goes through periods of struggle. This is about a coach who lost his locker room, and no coach, no matter how talented, amiable or dedicated, can survive in that environment.
This is not to say that the entire team lost support for its coach. Most players, in fact, said that Hughes had a positive impact on their lives. There are Tigers who openly backed Hughes and were stunned by Walters’ decision, but the overwhelming attitude from the team was that changes needed to be made.
“In football, you need to do everything your coach tells you,” said one of Hughes’ former players, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There is very little room for improvisation and even less for creativity. As a result, a coach needs the trust of his players. If the trust is not there, the team will crumble, and Hughes lost that trust.”
A current member of the team agreed.
“In some instances, we lacked faith that he would make the right personnel decision or call the right play,” he said, also speaking on the condition of anonymity.
Other players, both current and former Tigers, cited a disconnect between Hughes and the team. Some mentioned Hughes’ struggles to motivate his players, others his often detrimental micromanagement.
Last year, for example, Hughes converted then-junior defensive back Dan Kopolovich, a high school quarterback but one of Princeton’s best defensive players, to serve as backup quarterback. Knowing full well that he would need to pick a starting quarterback for this season from his group of talented freshmen, Hughes spent last year giving Kopolovich valuable reps under center. During the offseason, Kopolovich returned to the defense and sophomore signal-caller Tommy Wornham stepped in as the starter. Wornham began the season slowly but came into his own near the end, when the Tigers beat Yale and Dartmouth to close the year. Imagine the possibilities if it were Wornham, not Kopolovich, taking snaps last year.
Hughes’ career at Princeton hit its peak in 2005 and 2006, when the Tigers went 7-3 and 9-1, respectively. I was on the field following Princeton’s clinching of the Ivy League title in 2006, and, I have to admit, it was one of the better experiences I have had at Princeton. Hughes deserves a lot of the credit for that season, the program’s first nine-win season since 1964. But the team’s attitude toward Hughes began to shift after that point.
With their 23-11 victory over Dartmouth two weeks ago, the Tigers wrapped up a third straight 4-6 season. The victory was a bittersweet end to an emotional season, and less than 24 hours after the team returned from Hanover, N.H., news broke that Hughes had been relieved of duty.
If we as a school learned anything from the Joe Scott ’87 era, it is that good coaches are not always successful within the Princeton system. Hughes cared about his players, and his love for Princeton football was unparalleled, but without the full support of the locker room, that translates into very little on the field.
“He’s not a bad coach. He’s not a bad person. He’s just not right to coach here,” said one Tiger. “It became clear to us that changes needed to be made.”
And therein lies the reason why a new head coach must roam the Princeton sidelines next season. Much more important than the losing seasons or the current state of the program, Hughes lost the support and trust of his players. And for that reason the difficult — albeit correct — decision had to be made.
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