Almost 100 years of memories as Sacramento Republic FC returns to historic Hughes Stadium

Hughes Stadium towers as a beacon of civic pride. It has aged nicely at 95 years old with a glistening new field turf that was finished this week.

If the cinder block walls of the horseshoe-shaped structure could talk, what stories and memories they could share. Housed at Hughes: midget-car races in the 1930s, high school football games with overflow crowds in the 1940s and ’50s, NFL/AFL preseason games in the 1960s, the Night of Speed world-record 100-meter dash in 1968 and Triple-A baseball in the 1970s.

There were Pig Bowls and Holy Bowls, the Camellia Bowl, the Causeway Classic, boxing and soccer matches, and concerts, be it Willie Nelson, the Jackson 5, the Doobie Brothers or Pink Floyd.

If it happened here, it happened at Hughes.

The place is impossible to miss if you’re anywhere near Freeport Boulevard, where it sits on the campus of Sacramento City College. It is impossible to forget if you ever attended an event there. It is Sacramento’s most storied, versatile and venerable venue, and it will be nearly filled to the brim at 20,311 on Saturday night for another special event, this time soccer.

Sacramento Republic FC will face Orange County with a lot to play for and a lot at stake beyond first place in the standings. Hughes is where a new Republic FC franchise began as a curiosity and soon became a sure thing. The club played four matches in jam-packed Hughes 10 seasons ago in a place built for football but able to handle anything.

Fans showed up, filling the place and blowing the minds of club executives. The love affair never dimmed.

Republic FC now makes its home at Heart Health Park at Cal Expo, capacity 11,569, but the seeds of promise were planted at Hughes. The venue isn’t designed for soccer — too narrow and those pesky football hash marks — but it works for events like this.

“This is such cool stuff,” Republic FC general manager Todd Dunivant said of a return to Hughes for one night of reflection and fun. “Fans are going to see a real treat. We wanted to have a return-to-Hughes match because it’s a nod to our history, a nod to our past. Everyone has fond memories of our early days at Hughes. It’s all about the venue and the magic.”

He added: “It was unexpected how many fans showed up at first. It caught my attention as I was in Los Angeles playing for the Galaxy — ‘Whoa! What’s going on in Sacramento with those crowds?’ MLS teams at the time weren’t doing numbers like that. So it made sense to have a celebration match back at Hughes, something we can come back to and create more memories.”

Told by The Bee that Hughes was once the place to be for concerts, including still-going-strong Santana, and that Saturday could really rock with a legendary voice return, Dunivant said amid laughter, “I knew we forgot something!”

49ers and Raiders at Hughes

Hughes Stadium opened for business on Oct. 28, 1928 with the design to host area high school teams and the Sac City team. In 1944, it was named after Charles C. Hughes, the first superintendent for the Sacramento City Unified School District. The venue cost $168,000 to build, paid for through the sales of scrip to the community, a concept similar to the preferred seat licenses that populated the NFL decades later.

Most memories are from football, and some futbol, too, of course, beyond what Republic FC has accomplished. The 49ers went 5-1 in preseason games at Hughes in the 1950s and early ’60s when the NFL was trying to spread the word of its product. The Oakland Raiders won their first game in franchise history at Hughes, a preseason game against the Sammy Baugh-coached New York Titans in 1960, drawing 9,551 fans.

In those days, high school and college football drew much larger crowds than the pros. Some 26,000 stuffed into Hughes in 1947 with the help of end zone seats on the open end of the stadium to watch McClatchy and Sacramento play the annual Turkey Day Game on Thanksgiving, still a regional record for a prep game.

The Holy Bowl between Christian Brothers and Jesuit over the past 10 or so seasons has averaged about 16,000 fans. Hughes hosted the 50th Holy Bowl in 2021.

The Pig Bowl, a charity law enforcement/firefighter game, had its greatest moments at Hughes, including three-day tailgating sessions outside the stadium with overflow crowds on game day in the 1970s. The Pig Bowl will play its 50th game in January, at Hughes, of course.

Sacramento City College athletic administrator Paul Carmazzi, who has worked with Republic FC since last fall for Saturday’s match, said Hughes “has unbelievable history,” but that history nearly took a fatal hit in 1977. There was discussion within the Los Rios Community College District that Hughes may get torn down and replaced with 10,000 portable seats. Dick Pierucci, the late/great athletic director for Sac City, pushed to save Hughes. The venue got a face lift in 2013 while still holding onto its enduring throwback charm.

The new turf that Republic FC will break in on Saturday night figures to continue a tradition of sparkling in all seasons and conditions.

Largest Hughes crowd was a concert

The largest crowd in Hughes history? The 42,000 that packed in to watch the Doobie Brothers in 1981. Said Pierucci to The Bee decades later: “Great show, but I couldn’t wait for those fans to get the heck off our field!”

The last concert held at Hughes was in 1988 for Pink Floyd, resulting in more debris to tidy up by irked Sac City officials.

So, at 95, Hughes isn’t going anywhere.

Sacramento Republic FC strength and conditioning coach Luke Rayfield grew up in Sacramento, graduating from Sheldon High School and Sacramento State, so he knows all about Hughes Stadium. He said he gets chills thinking about the Republic’s first match at Hughes all those years ago.

“The biggest thing was the anticipation and the unknown,” he said. “We knew this was huge, but will people show up? We didn’t know. And they showed up. It wasn’t a one-hit wonder. There’s an appetite for soccer here, and you could feel the energy for that first match, and it kept going. It hasn’t left.”

It happened at Hughes

Memorable moments at Hughes Stadium:

1. The Night of Speed: In two races, 10 men tied or broke the 100-meter world record at the 1968 AAU championships on a hard, clay track in one of the most memorable showings in the history of the sport. Among the record holders was Jim Hines, who set a new world mark of 9.95 seconds to win Olympic gold in Mexico City.

2. First win, baby!: The Oakland Raiders beat the New York Titans 23-17 for their first franchise victory in a 1960 exhibition game, which was also the first night game for the Raiders. The Raiders went 2-0 at Hughes, including in a 1965 game with coach Al Davis.

3. Sacramento FC debuts: In its inaugural season of 2014, the soccer club was blown away by huge crowds that packed in to soak in soccer, leading to talk of a Major League Soccer entry someday and Saturday night’s return to Hughes as a celebration and show of appreciation.

4. China Grove: The Doobie Brothers drew a Hughes record crowd of 42,000 in 1981 on a hot August day. Rick Springfield was the opening act, and a crush of teenage girls shrieked, some throwing their clothes onto the stage. Santana followed, and then the Doobie Brothers.

5. Turkey Day Game: A crowd of 26,000 watched prep rivals Sacramento and McClatchy battle on Thanksgiving Day in 1947, still the largest to watch a high school game in regional history.

6. The Pig Bowl: The annual charity game between local law enforcement was the biggest show in town, filling up Hughes well before the Sacramento Kings arrived in 1985. The Pig Bowl turns 50 in January.

7. The Holy Bowl: The first game between Christian Brothers and Jesuit was at American River College in 1969, and the game bounced around to different venues before settling into Hughes for the largest, most festive crowds.

8. 49ers strike gold: In an effort to spread the word on this cool thing called professional football, the 49ers played six preseason games at Hughes, winning five, in the 1950s and ’60s.

9. Carl the comet: In 1981, well before basking in Olympic greatness, 19-year old Carl Lewis recorded the second-best long jump in history with a 28-foot, 3½-inch effort in the USA championships. He later called it his “coming out party.”

10. Historic bowl: The 1963 Camellia Bowl featured Saint John’s of Minnesota and Prairie View A&M of Texas in the NAIA championship game, the first college football game between an all-white team and an all-Black one in Prairie View. Saint John’s won, 33-27. Hughes from 1961 to 1980 hosted title games for NAIA, Division II and D-IAA.

11. Motley crew: On what was reported as the windiest day in Sacramento history, 24,876 jammed into Hughes in 1948 to watch Santa Clara beat Nevada and future Hall of Famer Marion Motley 14-0.

12. Curly’s last stand: Lambeau Field, home of the Green Bay Packers, is named after Hall of Fame coach Curly Lambeau, who coached his last game at Hughes in 1954. Lambeau led the Washington Redskins in a preseason loss to the 49ers. Later that night in the lobby of Sacramento’s Senator Hotel, an argument with owner George Preston Marshall led to Lambeau’s termination on the spot. He never coached again.

13. Homers and a no-hitter: Hometown product Bill McNulty in 1974 belted 44 of his 55 home runs for the Triple-A Sacramento Solons at Hughes, which had a 233-foot left-field fence. McNulty once ran the bases with his arms over his face in mock embarrassment. Also in 1974, Steve Dunning did the unthinkable by pitching a no-hitter for the Solons with 14 strikeouts. Despite setting records for homers and attendance, the Solons played just three seasons at Hughes.

14. Ranzany roundhouse: Sacramento’s own Pete Ranzany in a 1978 welterweight match was knocked out in the second round by Pipino Cuevas before a rain-soaked crowd of 17,000, the first world title fight in the city. In 1980, Ranzany defeated Sal Lopez with a sixth-round knockout at Hughes.

15. House of Payne: The Sacramento Gold drew nearly 60,000 fans for 14 home soccer matches at Hughes in 1979 to lead the American Soccer League in attendance en route to winning the ASL crown, but a fellow who irked opponents was Gold midfielder Danny Payne, who had a reputation for kicking opponents in the shins. He was once chased into the stands by fed-up Las Vegas players as spectators cleared the aisles.