It happened at Hughes: Raiders’ 1st win, Pink Floyd and return of prep football playoffs
You don’t have to sell the appeal of Hughes Stadium to Paul Carmazzi.
He knows because he’s lived it.
Carmazzi is the athletic coordinator at Sacramento City College, a career man on campus as a coach and administrator whose unofficial role is that of goodwill ambassador to the school and its storied venue.
“It’s Hughes, it’s beautiful, it’s great,” Carmazzi said. “I love it.”
Who wouldn’t? Perhaps only those who have not experienced it.
Hughes is a beacon of civic pride, dripping of charm if not rain drops off the cinder block walls. If those walls could talk, they would have some stories.
This goes both ways. High school football players over the weekend soaked in the old place as rain soaked them from helmet to cleats during the Sac-Joaquin Section championships on Saturday.
“What a great spot,” said Ripon quarterback Nico Ilardi, who led his small-school bunch past Center 21-13 in the Division V championship before the weather took center stage. “We saw it and went, ‘Wow.’ We’ll remember it.”
No area venue has the football history of Hughes: NFL and AFL exhibition games in the 1950s and ‘60s, including the Raiders’ first franchise victory and Curly Lambeau’s last game as coach. (Coaching the Washington Redskins, he lost a game at Hughes, then argued with the owner at the Senator Hotel downtown and was promptly fired.)
Other Hughes happenings: the professional football Surge with Raiders owner Al Davis once walking the grounds to ponder something likely between relocation and litigation, the Pig Bowl law-enforcement charity game, Triple-A baseball, world-record track marks, midget car races, boxing and every main musical act in its day, from The Jackson 5 to the Doobie Brothers to Pink Floyd.
But for all the events that have marched through Hughes, it’s easy to forget that the stadium was built, in 1923, for high school events. The venue was named after Charles C. Hughes in 1944 to honor the first superintendent of the Sacramento City Unified School District.
Prep football for decades was a staple at Hughes, including the Turkey Day rivalry game between the McClatchy Lions and Sacramento Dragons that in the 1940s and ‘50s was the biggest holiday show in town. Elk Grove beat Jesuit for the “City Championship” in 1998 in front of a full house of 20,000-plus to watch in a battle of 12-0 titans.
The section football championships for divisions I, II, III and V were held at Hughes this weekend, a first for all three levels, and hopefully not the last time. The D-II finals before Friday night were only held at Hughes in 2002 and 2003, when Oak Ridge repeated. Elk Grove beat Whitney on Friday night, 35-0.
The last time the D-I finals were held at Hughes was in 1983, when Christian Brothers won its last championship. Section championship games were held at the University of the Pacific from 1991 into the early 2000s, and that place had history, too. But it was razed several years ago, replaced by tennis courts. Sacramento State hosted upper-division section title games from 2010 through last season.
The governing body for prep sports in the Sacramento valley, headed by commissioner Mike Garrison, invites venue bids to host the section’s premiere fall event, meaning good money talks. But the section will not hemorrhage finances to secure a facility, because if it did, game tickets would go for a tidy $45.
Hughes and the Los Rio Community College District landed the bid this time, a one-year deal. Sac State’s magical football run this season was a hurdle because no one a month ago knew if or when the Hornets would host any playoff games (it will, starting Dec. 7).
“We’d like to have the high school football games back on our campus because it’s a great event,” Sac State athletic director Mark Orr said.
Said Carmazzi, eyeing Hughes from the press box Friday night, “This is the right place to have it for the kids. The neat thing is you could have 500 people here or a few thousand and it sounds like a ton of people because it echoes. It’s close to the field. People outside Sacramento have no idea how cool this place is.
“And the stadium has unbelievable history.”
That history nearly took a fatal hit in 1977. There were serious discussions of “tearing Hughes down,” Carmazzi said, and replacing it with 10,000 portable seats. Then-Sac City athletic director Dick Pierucci pushed to save Hughes. In 2013, the place got a facelift while still holding on to to its enduring charm. And the field turf sparkles in all seasons and conditions.
It’s not a perfect venue as fans took in overhead drops while waiting in line for the restrooms. Carmazzi’s next task? A retractable roof? No chance. Hughes as it stands is here to stay.