The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
John Hugley beats odds, on way to ACC
Adolescent years were filled with turmoil; now Brush senior is Mr. Basketball candidate
His adolescent years were filled with turmoil; now the Brush senior is a Mr. Basketball candidate.
Years before John Hugley IV signed a letter of intent to play basketball at the University of Pittsburgh on scholarship, he was a kid who couldn’t stay in school.
Hugley, who now stands 6-foot-10, didn’t seek trouble as a child so much as it found him. He grew up in Hough, one of east Cleveland’s roughest neighborhoods.
The circumstances of his upbringing aren’t unique among inner-city children. The outcome — Hugley completing high school and moving on to a university on scholarship — is exceptional.
As the biggest student in his grade, some on the streets perceived Hugley to be a fully grown adult. Between growing up in a lowincome neighborhood filled with negative influences coupled with the typical maturity level of an adolescent, Hugley’s behavior led to difficulties in school.
Add in the emotional turmoil associated with seeing his father, John Hugley III, sent to prison in 2012, and Hugley bounced through Cleveland Municipal middle schools — typically for fighting, outbursts fueled by his own pent-up feelings.
“A lot of anger,” Hugley said. “Not having a father, my father not being there, I’d act out for attention.”
So, ahead of his eighthgrade year, Hugley’s mother, Marquetta Washington, moved him out of Hough and into South Euclid.
When Hugley arrived at Memorial Junior High, he hadn’t played much organized basketball. Outside of playing on courts at Hough’s Salvation Army, Our Lady of Fatima Church or the Thurgood Marshall rec center, basketball wasn’t a serious pursuit even when he started playing organized ball in sixth grade.
Hugley’s first sport was football. On the field, he played quarterback and still says “I was nice” on the gridiron.
Chet Mason’s first year coaching and working in South Euclid Lyndhurst City Schools coincided with Hugley’s first year at Memorial. More than a tall kid who could possibly become a good basketball player for his team, let alone someone who earned 34 Division I scholarship offers, Mason saw a young man whose experience mirrored his own.
Mason grew up in east Cleveland, too, in the Kinsman neighborhood. He knew his father, but doesn’t have a relationship with the man. Mason attended Cleveland South and earned a scholarship to Miami (Ohio), then played professionally in the NBA’s D League and overseas before beginning his coaching career.
What Mason understood about Hugley, more than anything, was the attitude developed growing up in an inner-city neighborhood. “If they say you can’t touch the sun, we’re going to try,” Mason said. “That’s just how it goes because we already don’t have nothing as it is. Growing up, our environment is a whole bunch of negativity, and you see this stuff when you’re growing up in this stuff but you want better for yourself.”
If Hugley remained in Hough, he would’ve attended Martin Luther King Jr. High School in the Cleveland Municipal School District. The school received a D on its 2019 report from the Ohio Department of Education.
Per the most recent census data, Hough’s median household income is $18,906. Forty percent of the neighborhood lives in poverty and a quarter of its residents are unemployed.
When Hugley moved to South Euclid, he gained a big brother.
Mason, along with many others, spent parts of nearly every day at Memorial during Hugley’s eighth-grade year. After Mason said Hugley was “off the hook” in seventh grade, he and other faculty helped Hugley understand what was necessary simply to stay in school.
Soon after, Hugley’s disciplinary pattern ceased — at the expense of a few additional gray hairs on Mason’s head.
“It helped a lot,” Hugley said. “Being able to stay on track and staying focused, it helped a lot. Just him being there for me, not even on the coaching side, just like a big brother, I know I could call him for anything. I know my mother could call him for anything. He helped a lot.”
One thing Mason didn’t try to do was fill the void left by Hugley’s father.
Since Hugley was 10, John Hugley III couldn’t physically be in his son’s life. The days when Hugley IV, accompanied by his grandfather, had to watch other kids with their fathers at school events hurt.
Hugley III was incarcerated on Oct. 18, 2012, on counts of aggravated robbery and kidnapping after he and two other men robbed a pizza shop in Painesville earlier that year. Hugley III was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
While incarcerated at Lorain Correctional Institution, Hugley III has done his best to stay involved in his son’s life. Hugley IV visits his father almost every weekend. His dad calls him before every one of his games, and the family is hopeful for an early release this year or the next.
Moreover, Hugley and his fellow inmates at Lorain Correctional held a Fatherhood Conference at the prison in 2018 that featured guest speakers and parenting workshops.
Hugley IV knows his dad cares. He says it’d be “amazing” for his father to come watch him play in a Pitt uniform at the Petersen Events Center in coming years.
“It’s a motivation,” Hugley said. “He’s still here. Most fathers, probably, when they go to jail, they probably lose contact with their child. My dad, even when I probably don’t want to talk, he’s still blowing up my phone wanting to talk to me, just letting me know how much he misses me and he’s sorry for letting us down.
“It makes me feel like he still loves me, he’s still here for us, he still supports me.”
When Hugley made it through middle school and arrived at Brush, his basketball IQ and advanced skill helped him play immediately alongside DJ Dial, Andre Harris, Tahj Benton and Tyler Williams. The Arcs won 18 games and the conference title, but a long road lay ahead of Hugley — a path that required diet and exercise.
As a 6-foot-8 freshman, Hugley admits his weight topped 300 pounds in 2016. Typical days for him after school featured homework, hours of practice during the season then conditioning and lifting that kept him in the gym until nearly 10 p.m. most nights.
Hugley showed progress as a sophomore, scoring 12.8 points per game. He became a force during his junior season, putting up 16.1 points, 12.6 boards, 3.7 assists and 1.9 blocks per game.
As a senior, now down to 255 pounds, the Mr. Basketball candidate posted 23.1 points, an area-best 12.5 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game as Brush’s focal point following the graduation of Dial and Harris. He scored 52 points in a game against Mayfield on Feb. 7, setting the Arcs’ single-game program record.
Before the season began, he stood onstage alongside his mother, grandfather and sisters Jasmine and Janiya in Brush’s auditorium and committed to Pitt and coach Jeff Capel’s program last October. The sacrifices made by his mother add further motivation for Hugley to succeed at an ACC program.
“I’ve got to give back to her,” Hugley said. “She’s been a super-mom for us, basically. That’s what she is, a super-mom. With my dad not there, she’s got to play the father role and the mother role.”
Hugley dreams of playing in the NBA and buying his mother a new home. Mason points to the value of a college education and what that can do to improve life for the Hugley family, regardless of what Hugley accomplishes on the basketball court.
Either way, considering his background, Hugley’s already won.
“Beating the odds is tough,” Mason said. “He’s beat most of them because, being real with you, at the age of 18, being an 18-yearold black boy growing up in the inner city, you’re not supposed to be in the position he’s in.”
Mason’s conversations with Hugley still continue, but now they pertain to how proud he is of the young man Hugley became through the past five years.
Once Hugley figured out what he wanted, the rest was up to him.
“Basically, whatever you’ve got in your mind, just stick to it,” Hugley said. “Never give up and let nobody tell you you can’t do it. Stay true to yourself. Everything else will fall in place.”