Pete Hughes: More Than a Coach

Passionate. It is a simple word, one that most people use to describe their feelings toward something or someone. Pete Hughes, head coach of the varsity baseball team at Virginia Tech, uses this word to describe his coaching style.

Hughes is entering his second season here hoping to start fresh. In fact, he brought 18 newcomers on to the Hokie squad for this season. He has been a head coach at the collegiate level for 11 seasons, and will continue to do so until he no longer can.

Hughes has been associated with baseball for his whole life. His first real memory of any type of organized baseball is playing wiffleball in the yard of his neighborhood growing up.

He played four years of collegiate baseball and even started at quarterback all four years at Davidson College. By his senior year, Hughes was the captain of the baseball team, and graduated in 1990 with a degree in sociology/anthropology.

Hughes began his coaching career at Trinity University in Texas in 1997. Then he moved on after two seasons to coach at Boston College for eight seasons before making the move to Virginia Tech.

Hughes said he made the move to Virginia Tech because he felt it was a special place. He decided it was a better place to raise his family, and he wanted his family to have the same opportunity he did growing up; being a part of a college community.

“I left an unbelievable job, my hometown, and a lifetime of job security,” said Hughes, “so obviously I thought Virginia Tech was a special place.”
 
Players and coaches are more than thankful for Hughes’ arrival at Tech.

“Hughes is a person that has great motivation on anyone,” said Matt Foley, a recent graduate from the Virginia Tech baseball team. “He gives you reason to want to work, and do anything you can to be the best in-shape athlete to play for him.  Not only to work your hardest on the field, but off the field in the classroom.  If you do what he says and what he believes, he is much easier to get along with.”

Hughes distinguishes his coaching tactics with the statement, “What you see is what you get.” Although he is recognized by his players and peers for being an extremely passionate coach, he says he cannot classify what he does as a “style.”

He likes to make it known to his players that he is approachable, as is his staff, with any situation, whether it is with baseball, academics, or social. Hughes says if he had to classify the way he does what he does it would be aggressive, emotionally invested, and providing a hands-on type work atmosphere.

“His coaching style is great to play for,” said assistant coach Tom Mackor. “He is a great motivator and keeps the dugout loose.  He knows when to get on somebody but he will never do it if you are making an aggressive mistake.  He is committed to everything he does whether it’s his family or making this program into a national program. He is great with people and interaction and this in turn makes him a great recruiter. He is very confident is everything he does and that is probably why he has been so successful.”

Hughes is not just a coach, friend, and confidant; he is also a family man. He has a wife and five children, four boys and one girl.

The fact that Hughes is a family man plays a role in the way he coaches his players. He said he treats the guys on his team the same way he would treat his own kids. By that he meant telling the truth, being fair, and letting them have some accountability in all facets of life.

“I’m bringing up my kids the same way I approach everyday actions around the kids in my dugout,” said Hughes.

Tom Mackor seconds Hughes’ “family man” image by saying, “His family always comes first and I feel lucky to have the opportunity to be around his family every day.  He is truly a genuine person.”

Underneath the exterior of the passionate and aggressive baseball coach, lie a few things many people do not know that Coach Hughes would like them to.

“I like Oprah Winfrey, I am a great cook, and I am undefeated in my life in the game of mercy,” he offered. Mercy is the game where two people interlock in hand holds and place submission holds on each other until one person says ‘mercy.’

Hughes made sure to mention that with him, it is never about tolerating the pain, but merely having the strategy and strength to never be put in the situation to lose.