Men's Wrestling
- Title:
- Associate Head Coach
- Email:
- joh508@lehigh.edu
- Phone:
- 610-758-6912
- Alma Mater:
- 11th season
John Hughes enters his 12th season on the Mountain Hawks’ coaching staff, and his eighth as Lehigh’s associate head coach. A three-time All-American and former NCAA Champion at Penn State, Hughes helped guide the Mountain Hawks to 144 dual wins in 11 seasons in Bethlehem, plus top ten NCAA finishes in 2011 and 2012, after spending the previous five seasons at his alma mater.
Hughes works with wrestlers from almost every weight class, but the development of Lehigh’s middleweights under him was evident over the last seven seasons. In the 2011-12 season, Shane Welsh won a three-man battle for the starting spot at 149 and went on to win an EIWA title as the No. 6 seed. Welsh, Brian Tanen and Brandon Hatchett all qualified for the NCAA Championships at 149, 157 and 165 respectively. Hatchett also won an EIWA title and earned his second All-American medal after reaching the NCAA finals as the No. 11 seed. In 2012-13, Hughes worked closely with Joey Napoli, who came back from a deferred year to post an 18-4 record at 157, capturing an EIWA title and earning the No. 3 seed at the NCAA Championships. In the last four seasons he has helped Mitch Minotti to a pair of All-America medals plus a Midlands title and an EIWA runner-up finish. Lehigh has developed tremendous depth at the middleweights with Ian Brown and Drew Longo performing well when Minotti went down with an injury. Gordon Wolf began the 2015-16 season as Lehigh’s fourth-string 157 pounder but Wolf moved up to 174 and qualified for the NCAA Championships. The 2016-17 season saw the emergence of freshman Jordan Kutler as a Southern Scuffle champion and a top five-ranked wrestler through most of the regular season. Senior captain Laike Gardner fell one win short of All-America honors at 149, while 165, led by Minotti and freshman Cole Walter proved to be one of Lehigh’s deepest and most talented weight classes.
The 2017-18 season saw Hughes work with a Lehigh team that went 12-3 in duals, won the program’s first EIWA title since 2006 and qualified all 10 wrestlers for the NCAA Championships for the first time under the current qualifying system.
Lehigh won its second straight EIWA title in 2019 with middleweights Cortlandt Schuyler, Josh Humphreys and Gordon Wolf all qualifying for the NCAA Championships. Humphreys became just Lehigh’s second true freshman EIWA Champion since 1980 and he and Wolf reached the All-America round of 12 at the NCAA Championships.
Hughes is regarded as one of the toughest wrestlers in Penn State history. He won an NCAA Championship at 142 in 1995 and added All-American honors with a seventh place finish in 1994 and a runner-up finish in 1996. Hughes amassed with 121 career victories for the Nittany Lions. In addition to his national title, Hughes was the 1995 Big Ten Champion and also won a gold medal at the 1994 Pan-Am Games and a University National Freestyle Championship.
In five seasons on the coaching staff at Penn State, Hughes made a profound and immediate impact in the training room. Working predominantly with the Nittany Lion middleweights, Hughes helped guide Bubba Jenkins and Dan Vallimont to All-American honors in 2008, while as a team, Penn State crowned four All-Americans and finished third in the team standings, the program’s best finish since 1994. Hughes also played a major role in Penn State’s recruiting efforts which have produced recruiting classes that were among the nation’s best, and has continued that tradition at Lehigh as the Mountain Hawks have brought in nationally ranked recruiting classes, including one of the nation’s top three classes which entered in the fall of 2012.
A native of Stillwater, Pennsylvania, Hughes won four PIAA state championships wrestling for Benton High School. He earned his bachelor’s degree in landscape contracting from Penn State in 2002. Prior to joining the Penn State coaching staff on a full time basis, Hughes served as head coach for the Nittany Lion Wrestling Club. He also enjoyed a stint as an assistant coach for the Pittsburgh Wrestling Club and worked as an environmental technician for Groundwater and Environmental Services, Inc.
Hughes and his wife Melissa have a son, Riley and a daughter, Morgan.
High School: Benton H.S.
College Career: Penn State 1992-1996
College Degree: B.S. Landscape Contracting, Penn State
Coaching Career: Asst. Pittsburgh Wrestling Club (2000-2001), Asst. Nittany Lion Wrestling Club (2001-2003), Asst. Penn State (2003-2008), Asst. Lehigh (2008-present)
Career Highlights: National champion at 142 in 1995… three-time All-American… University National Champion…Pan-Am Games gold medalist.
