Rick Hughes ('98)

If Jenny Boerger Case is the best female athlete ever to play at Thomas More, one could make the argument that Rick Hughes could be the best male athlete.  Hughes played men’s basketball for Thomas More from 1992-96.  Hughes led the team in scoring and rebounding all four years and finished his career with a school-record 2,605 points. At the time of induction he held 11 school records and his list of accomplishments and achievements are almost unbelievable.

Hughes played in 101 career games and started 95 while his career scoring average was 25.8 points per game and his rebounding average was 8.8 rebounds per game.  He led Thomas More in scoring in 89 games and in rebounding in 69 games.  Hughes totaled 37 career double-doubles in points and rebounds and was only held below 10 points in a game two times.  He scored 30 or more points in a game 29 times and 20 or more points 81 times.  He also had 10 or more rebounds 37 times.

The greatest game in Hughes’ illustrious career came on February 18, 1995 on the road as the team defeated Asbury, 108-107.  In that game, he scored a school-record 50 points and grabbed 23 rebounds, both game-highs.  He made 20-of-30 attempts from the floor and 10-of-15 attempts from the free throw line.  Two other players for Thomas More scored in double figures as Hughes also led the team in assists with six while adding three blocks.

Thomas More won three AMC Championships during his career.  He is the only player ever to have been each of the following:  four-time AMC Player of the Year; four-time First-Team All-AMC; four-time AMC All-Tournament and three-time AMC Tournament Most Valuable Player.  He also held the record for most points in AMC Tournament history with 58, a record that he set twice.  Hughes was also a 1996 National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) First-Team All-American and a two-time Columbus Multimedia First-Team All-American selection in 1995 and 1996.

Since leaving Thomas More, Hughes had been playing professional basketball both overseas and in the United States.  After his senior season, he was selected by the Connecticut Pride with the 26th overall pick in the 1996 Continental Basketball Association (CBA) draft.  While playing in Lebanon in 1998, Hughes averaged 36.3 points per game, the tops of any pro league in the world that year.  Six National Basketball Association (NBA) teams looked at Hughes prior to the 1999-2000 season.

The Utah Jazz put Hughes on their pre-season roster prior to that season and on Wednesday, October 13, 1999, he entered an NBA game for the first time, scoring four points.  One of the biggest moments of his career came on Friday, October 15, 1999 when he scored a team-high 19 points against the Seattle Supersonics and was featured in the highlights that night on ESPN’s SportsCenter.

The Cincinnati, Ohio native played in 21 games for the Dallas Mavericks during the 1999-00 season, averaging 3.9 points per game and in 2000, he was in the Golden State Warriors training camp. Hughes was signed by the Kansas City Knights of the American Basketball Association (ABA) on March 20, 2002.  Prior to that, he was a member of the Nike Elite traveling team that played against Division I competition in exhibitions prior to the 2001-02 season.