March 22, 2023
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Dan Hughes talks NCAA Tournament, Seattle Storm tenure and his ties
By The Next
Howard and Dan Hughes chat about his tie collection, broadcasting and WNBA coaching career
It’s time for another episode of the Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast. This episode features host Howard Megdal who is joined by Dan Hughes, broadcaster last weekend at the Salt Lake City pod featuring Utah, Princeton, NC State and Gardner-Webb, to talk about what we learned, particularly about the Tigers and Utes. The two discuss Hughes’ storied WNBA coaching career and answer the question everyone has been asking: how many basketball ties does Hughes own?
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Dan Hughes talks about his ties choices and the reason behind them:
“Well, it goes back to coaching, to be honest with you; the day of a game as a coach is an absolute struggle until the ball goes up. You know, you just want to get to the game. But the only time I had fun, true fun, was when I would go to pick out what tie I was going to wear. And all kinds of reasons why I wore different things people didn’t always know I didn’t necessarily broadcast it, but it was like a private joke of myself to carry that over into broadcasting when I get to go to broadcasting. And I hope it matches the colors I am wearing and that’s really secondary, but I probably have more basketball ties than any single human being.”
Dan Hughes talks about broadcasting and what led him to start a career as a broadcaster:
“I was really fortunate. You know, God’s blessed me. At Charlotte, I became the interim coach. And my point guard was Dawn Staley, which I think you’re aware of, but people don’t realize it and all of a sudden, our season turned, and we went to the Conference Finals and did enough that Cleveland came and offered me a full-time job.
So I go to Cleveland, and in Cleveland, I meet Joe Tait and did every one of our games with the Rockers. I think we had like 120-something games. He did every one of them with us. And he was just a pure joy. But he also did the Cavaliers. He’s a legendary, just an absolute legendary announcer. People in the business really love him. But he said to me, why don’t you come to a high school game? This was the man Joe Tait; he would go to high school games on an off day, not the NBA schedule, the WNBA schedule on an off night, he’d go to a high school game. And that’s the type of man this guy was, and he’s an absolute legend in Cleveland.”
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