Ronald Hughey Opens Up On Losing the Houston Women’s Basketball Job, Eddie Nuñez Delves Into the New Coach Search — A PaperCity Exclusive

The day after he got severed from his dream opportunity as the University of Houston women’s basketball head coach, Ronald Hughey’s outgoing voice mail message still ends with “It’s a great day to be a Cougar.” That’s Ronald Hughey — endlessly enthusiastic, forever positive and somehow resolutely still ever believing in the face of everything. Maybe this is why while everyone else saw the end of Hughey’s run at Houston coming for months (if not longer), Hughey himself professes to being surprised. Even after a 5-25 season.

“No, I didn’t expect to have to resign from the job,” Hughey tells PaperCity in his first interview since that separation. “I didn’t expect to not be at the University of Houston. I thought that with everything that happened, they would be able to look at that and make a good decision like ‘You’ve never had any year like this before.’

“So again if you look at the track record, you’re like OK this is an anomaly. So again, get some players back next year and you run it back and then you see. And you go from there. But again, I respect the right for (UH athletic director) Eddie (Nuñez) and everybody involved to be able to make the decision.

“They want what’s best for the program and so do I.”

Hughey will circle back later in the conversation and reiterate how he’s not complaining, how he holds no ill will towards anyone at UH. The grandmother who came out of the stands onto the basketball floor and pulled him off the court early in his playing days at C.A. Johnson High School in his native Columbia, South Carolina when young Hughey threw his arms up at a ref’s call, did not raise a complainer. Hughey’s 140-195 record in 11 seasons at UH represents years of chances that didn’t work out.

University of Houston’s first year athletic director Eddie Nuñez sees an opportunity for so much in women’s basketball at UH, thinks Houston deserves more from what should be one of its signature women’s sports programs.

“I see the potential in all our women’s teams,” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “I really do. I think basketball has the ability to really have such an uptick. Much more than many others because honestly it just hasn’t been where we possibly could be. So I do believe. Houston for a long time had a WNBA team which was rocking here. And they were doing a great job.

“So I know the fan base is here for women’s basketball. So we’ve got to get out there and put a product that they’re happy with, that they enjoy to see. Similar to men’s basketball.”

When I start to ask for a timeline for his now national search for UH women’s basketball’s next coach, Nuñez quickly jumps in before the question’s even finished. “Yesterday,” he says. “Could I hire yesterday? For me, it’s about doing it right. If anybody saw how we did the soccer search (hiring rising Stephen F. Austin coach Ben Williams to lead that UH women’s program) — and yes, even though that’s a much smaller search process — it was very intent.

“I’ve already started. I’ve already started talking to agents, people, coaches and staff members that I trust in this industry and asking about certain individuals. I want to be swift, but I want to do it right.”

Expect to see names like Kelsi Musick, the Oral Roberts University coach with the high-octane offense, Tulsa coach Angie Nelp, North Texas coach Jason Burton, Stephen F. Austin coach Leonard Bishop, established program building UNLV coach Lindy La Rocque and rising assistants at major programs brought up for this Big 12 job at UH. Mike Bradbury, the women’s basketball coach at the University of New Mexico where Nuñez came from as AD, will be contacted, college sports sources tell PaperCity. But it is unsure if Bradbury is a serious candidate or that contact will be more fact finding.

“I want to find a high character, high integrity person that’s really dang good at their job,” Nuñez tells PaperCity. “And understands what it means to be at the University of Houston. And what opportunity that presents. So that’s what it’s about for me. Let’s go get it.”

“I think (women’s) basketball has the ability to really have such an uptick. Much more than many others because honestly it just hasn’t been where we possibly could be. So I do believe. Houston for a long time had a WNBA team which was rocking here.” — UH athletic director Eddie Nuñez

Ronald Hughey, The Person

Ronald Hughey spends his first full day in 11 years without being able to call himself the UH women’s basketball coach doing laundry, cleaning up around the house and picking his 6-year-old son Hunter, a spirited Pearland pee wee football player, from school. His bio is scrubbed from the University of Houston’s athletics website, now going to a 404 error that reads “You tossed an air ball!”

“Right now, I have 66 text messages to go through,” Hughey says. “Former players, friends from around the NCAA, Kelvin Sampson, everybody. . . (Former UH athletic director) Chris Pezman.

“I got 66 more to go. And I can’t even begin to talk about the calls. . .That really warms my heart. Because it easily could be zero.”

Hughey tells PaperCity that he hopes to catch on as an assistant on someone’s staff and eventually get another head coaching shot at a mid major. The 54-year-old’s been a valuable assistant before at elite women’s basketball programs such as South Carolina and the University of Texas. His wife Shae, who works for Texas disabilities, already has a masters degree from Florida State and is completing her PhD at Texas Southern.

Hughey is touched that University of Houston men’s coach Kelvin Sampson took the time to note: “There’s not a better human being on this campus than Ron Hughey.”

“It means a hell of a lot for me,” Hughey says. “For number one, because he’s Kelvin Sampson. Number two, he understands people and character. And attitudes and who people are. Number three, he’s been around bullshit. He’s seen bullshit before. He knows what fake looks like. Those kind of things.

“So for Kelvin to say those things about me, it’s an honor.”

Ron Hughey will always hold the players he coached at Houston, young women such as Laila Blair, Dorian Branch and Jasmyne Harris, close to his heart. Fitting for a coach who always coached from the heart. Whether breaking into an impromptu dance or urging his teams to press with the fierceness he showed on the sideline. The UH women’s basketball program got hit with real life tragedy during Hughey’s tenure with director of basketball operations Kaila Chizer, a former player and grad assistant he adored, dying suddenly at age 26 due to a brain aneurysm in 2022. Hughey talks about “all the young ladies that came here and graduated” during his time as being his real win.

“For Kelvin to say those things about me, it’s an honor.” — Ronald Hughey

Eddie Nuñez praises Ronald Hughey, the caring person, too. But Nuñez got hired in part to right some of the struggling programs that former AD Chris Pezman either could not or would not make changes at. Many forget in the rightful excitement and good feelings over Willie Fritz today that even former football coach Dana Holgorsen wouldn’t have been fired when he was if Holgorsen had agreed to jettison a number of his assistants, notably defensive coordinator Doug Belk, and remake his staff.

Even before this season got derailed by a serious of season-ending player injuries for Ron Hughey, the lack of a clear improvement in record and fan attendance over his tenure made his coaching fate tenuous. Nuñez is not the only one who thinks women’s basketball should be more impactful than this at UH, in the fourth largest city in America, with some of the best high school players in the country all around.

Van Chancellor, the legendary former Houston Comets championship coach who also led LSU to a Final Four during Nuñez’s time working in the Tigers’ powerhouse athletic department, feels there is a pent-up demand for high level women’s basketball in Houston. He lived it with the Comets.

“We were wondering if we’d sell a thousand tickets,” Chancellor tells PaperCity. “If we’d sell two thousand, five thousand. All of a sudden I walk in, we’re playing New York Liberty, I’ll never forget it, every seat in the building is taken. Sixteen thousand two hundred and eighty five. And that is one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had in sports.”

Toyota Center general manager Doug Hall tells PaperCity that they’d like to get more high-level, high-profile women’s college basketball games into the arena. And that the arena operators would love to see UH women’s hoops grow to the point where it could be part of such a push.

Ronald Hughey wants the same thing for Houston women’s basketball even though he won’t be part of it. When I ask Hughey what his favorite moment of his 11 season run at UH is, a run that included one 20 win season sandwiched by 12-19 and 15-16 seasons, he does not hesitate.

“The best moment I think I had here was the day I got the job,” Hughey says. “The day I got the job — and you can see the picture on my Twitter and Instagram (bio) and all that kind of stuff. . . That moment just to know all the work you’ve done over all the years that somebody looked at it and say, ‘We think you’ve done enough to be rewarded a program of their own.’

“That was my most proudest moment.”

This is the first in a series of stories PaperCity is doing on the state of women’s basketball in the city of Houston.