He can prattle off numbers like any sports-crazed fan; jerseys, player stats, scores and records, but the only number that matters to NBN News sports journalist Mitchell Hughes right now is the No 3.
That’s the age of his twin boys, Harvey and Harrison.
It’s also the date in August that the popular sports journo will read his final update on the evening news.
And, it’s the number of extra hours each day he hopes to be sharing with his young family.
After 24 years with Newcastle’s television news broadcaster, Mitch is handing over his microphone to take on a new challenge, away from the cameras.
In the coming weeks, he’ll begin his new role as a media advisor with the City of Newcastle.
His final night on air will be Thursday 3 August.
Then, he says, he’ll be catching up on family time.
Coaching kids’ sports could also be on the cards too, given his place in a long “red and blue” blood line.
In fact, born at ‘The Mater’ and raised in Kotara South, Mitch is the quintessential Novocastrian.
He even spent his late teens and early 20s studying at the University of Newcastle, before he followed the path of every intrepid antipodean and moved to England for a spell.
Then, in 1999, he fell into television work in a move he describes as “being in the right place at the right time”.
“One of my best mates from school rang me and said they needed someone to do four hours a weekend and asked if I wanted to come in and do a trial,” Mitch says.
“I was studying film at uni and I’d always really liked using our video camera at home, so I took to it really quickly. I really liked editing.”
Times have changed
“It’s funny now everything is on computer and it’s all dumped onto a server, and you cut from video files off the computer,” Mitch explains.
“When I started in 99, we had two giant machines with beta cam tapes in them.
“We used to put them in and you’d edit from tape to tape and everything was on a master, and you’d be running it through the office and putting it into a different machine and pressing play.
“It’s very much changed in that respect.”
After completing an honours degree in film in 2003, Mitch took on an editor role at NBN News Newcastle.
“I went from doing eight hours a week to doing 48 hours a week.
His first story was with up-and-coming country music singer Catherine Britt, who had recently released a single with Elton John.
“I went out and did it, interviewed Catherine, did the story, came back, wrote it, and gave it to the producer at the time,” Mitch says.
“He called me over and said, ‘who helped you with this?’, I said no one.
“He went straight into the news director and said forget the camera work he’s a reporter, put him on the road.”
Three months later he was running a bureau in Tweed Heads, a move he describes as “a steep learning curve”.
Launching into sport
It was here in NSW’s most northern town that he fell in love with sports reporting.
“There were three camos (camera operators) and three journos,” he says.
“The two girls I worked with weren’t as keen on sports, so I ended up sort of volunteering.
“I was hooked, I met some amazingly talented athletes and I got a taste for sports journalism.”
But, it wasn’t yet his time to shine, and after returning to the steel city, he would have to once again earn his stripes.
“When you move back to head office here, it’s like you have to be a jack of all trades. You have to be a producer, and you have to fill in as chief of staff, and you have to fill in doing some news and doing some sport,” he told the Newcastle Weekly.
“I just had to quickly fall into doing backup sport as much as possible.”
That was until January 1 2009 when Mitch read his first on-air news update.
But a sports journalist is not a real journalist
“I went to a house fire in Wallsend very early in my career and the family came out and abused us,” he says.
“I was there thinking my family lives here, my mum’s whole family; brothers, sisters, parents – lived in Wallsend at the time.
“I wasn’t trying to be a bad person and turn up and do the wrong thing, but I wasn’t going to stand there and justify that this is what I want to do.”
The incident ruffled feathers back at the news desk, too.
“I actually got in trouble because I’d turned around and said to the girl (at the house fire) ‘sorry, I don’t even want to be here. I want to be a sports journalist’.
“She rang the station and said ‘you didn’t even bring a real reporter, you sent a sports journalist’.”
It didn’t matter, because by 2011 he’d officially become a sports journalist.
“In February, I remember it because it was my 33rd birthday, and all these people were laughing and saying, ‘it’s your Jesus year where Jesus, aged 33, walked on water,” Mitch explains.
And, while the role brought him joy, 24 years later his priorities have changed.
THIS IS ABOUT FAMILY
“The boys were born the first month of COVID,” Mitch reflects.
“So it’s been brutal. They were born March, 2020.
“We were literally walking to the hospital, and they were putting signs up saying, ‘no visitors, masks must be worn by everybody’.
“I remember thinking, oh, this will be around for a month or two.
“And then the next thing you know, it was two years later and there were still restrictions.
“I remember friends asking and I’d say ‘mate, it’s been really hard. I’m just finding it really difficult because the first year was bad enough, because I mean, kids at zero to one are impossible, but two at once.
“And, then COVID meant we couldn’t have visitors, so Laura couldn’t have any help.
“She was doing everything on her own at home, and I was trying to balance working, trying to work a bit from home, and trying to be home.
“My mum was coming over a lot when we could have visitors, but my dad at the time had a bone marrow cancer called myelofibrosis, and mum couldn’t really come over too much because she couldn’t get immunocompromised to go home with anything to dad.
“My parents didn’t meet my kids for six weeks after they were born, and they were only living at Wallsend at the time.”
Mitch’s dad sadly passed away in 2021, not long after he’d first met Harvey and Harrison.
“The boys were born in the March and my father died Easter the year after,” Mitch says.
“It still makes me cry now just because my dad and his dad were two of my best mates, and both of them being gone when I became a dad was really hard.”
The reality, Mitch explains was “brutal”, and he knew it was time for a change.
“Just after I came back to work after having the boys, one of the cameramen at work, who was probably in his 50s, even 60s, said to me ‘from everything you’ve ever told me about your dad, the most valuable thing he ever gave you was time and that’s the one thing you’d love now to get back’.
“He said, ‘he didn’t buy you a bike or a car or a surfboard, and you’re not sitting here going, dad once did this for me, all you’re ever talking about is the holidays you took to Seal Rocks when you were kids, the camping and the holidays at Christmas at Nelson Bay, and all the time you spent with him’.
“I think it hit home.
“I thought if the boys want to do all those things, I’ll never get to see any of it.
“I don’t get to see them go to practice. I don’t get to see them do their recital. I don’t get to see them play.
“If they want to play soccer I won’t get to see it.”
His age was also playing heavily on his mind at the time.
“I had kids at 42, the idea of waiting to that age, and then missing all those things …” he pondered.
After helping with the overnight feeding of twins, reality hit Mitch square in the eyes when they began sleeping through the night.
“I went from doing feeds through the night, to seeing them in the morning from say, 6.30 for an hour.”
Then the day Laura dropped the boys at childcare at 8am and told them they’d next see Daddy tomorrow, hit Mitch like a ton of bricks.
“It was eight o’clock in the morning and I realised I wouldn’t get to see my kids until six o’clock the next morning.
“It smashed me that day. It smashed me.”
“I was a dish pig at Sizzler when I was 15, so that was all weekend work, and then I was a pizza delivery driver when I was 19, and that was all weekend and night work.
“Then, a week after I turned 21, I was working weekends at NBN News as an editor.”
THE FUTURE
The idea of a Monday to Friday work week, is still sinking in for Mitch and his wife Laura – a palliative care doctor.
“It’s just going to be incredible to have weekends off.
“I’ll wake up on a Sunday and be like, I don’t have to go to work, that’s such a foreign concept.
“It’s been a huge decision because 24 years of working at NBN, it’s very much a comfort zone, but I think at 45, if you were going to make the move, it’s like you’ve done 20-ish years of this, now you’ve still got potential to do 20-ish years of something else.”
Sport is in the blood
One thing is for certain, the future is sure to feature sports – it’s in the blood.
“I had a grandfather (Bob Frame) who played a couple of B Internationals for the Socceroos when he was young,” Mitch explains.
“Even my dad played first grade soccer, so the family was always into it.
“And, my favourite thing is knowing that I’ve made relationships with people who have achieved so much in their sport.
“They probably lived my sporting dreams for me. And I’ve lived vicariously through them.
“I’ve just loved telling their stories.”
Watching them grow in their sports is a thrill, Mitch says.
“I did an interview with Stephanie Gilmore when I worked on the Gold Coast when she signed her first contract with Rip Curl when she was 16 years old and had never won a contest.
“Now, I look back and think she’s won eight world titles and she’s the best female surfer of all time.
“I met Kelly Slater the same month.
“I was an ambassador for the City of Newcastle when the LA Galaxy came to visit and Kate (Haberfield) and I got to meet David Beckham.
But, it’s the local talent that he’ll always remember fondly.
“Sitting down with Kurt Fearnley and talking to him about what his next challenge would be, the Kakoda Track, The New York Marathon. I love that stuff. I really, really get inspired by that stuff.
“But, it’ll equally be Poppy Star Olson, the skateboarder who at 14 competed on the world stage.
“I get a kick out of every single one of those stories.
HIGHLIGHTS
“The best thing is having had a chance to watch them (sports stars) from their beginnings,” Mitch says.
And, with that comment follows a string of who’s who of talented athletes that have stemmed from Newcastle including; Jackson Baker, Ryan Callinan, Sam Poolman, Nigel Boogard from the Jets, and basketballer Ben Simmons.
“It’s rewarding now to see them doing well, but a lot of them have since retired, and that makes me feel old.”
The Mitch Hughes Legacy
So, what does this boy from Newy hope he’ll be most remembered for?
“The best feedback I’ve received from my time at NBN News was from Kurt Fearnley’s wife Sheridan who said to me ‘Mitchie, I just wanted to say that you were the best thing that happened to NBN since I’ve been here, you turned sport into something that was for everybody. Sport to me when I was a kid was able-bodied, white male dominated, and I don’t know if it was a conscious thing, but you made sport something for everybody’.”
Mitch credits his parents for his non-prejudice approach.
“So often Paralympic sports reporting starts with ‘Kurt was born with this condition and he’s had to overcome so many challenges’ when his story actually begins with Kurt as an athlete that has worked hard to get to this event,” he says.
“I certainly didn’t start or fuel the revolution, but I’m proud to think I was part of it.
“My favourite thing is just knowing that I’ve helped, but also knowing that there are people who have achieved so much, and I’ve been part of their journeys.”
Just a fan
“I keep saying to anyone that I talk to, I just get to be a fan now.
“And, I’ll still be here, cheering from the sidelines. I’m not going anywhere, I’m still a Newy boy.”
For more stories like this:
- What’s On in and around our region
- How’s business in the Hunter? five minutes with Bob Hawes
- Hunter to welcome $1.25 million athletics track
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