By Stampeders.com staff

After winning the Canadian Football League sack title and being the West Division nominee for Most Outstanding Player in 2013, Charleston Hughes gave himself a tough act to follow.

And for the first half of the 2014 season, the veteran Stampeders defensive end was putting together a pretty good encore as he started the year with a sack in each of Calgary’s first six games and in eight of the first nine.

Things went south for Hughes on Sept. 13 as he was one of the Stamps players who went down in a car wreck of a football game that also sidelined fellow defensive linemen Demonte’ Bolden and Ben D’Aguilar, quarterback Bo Levi Mitchell and slotback Marquay McDaniel.

Hughes’ diagnosis was a left foot injury and the process of getting back in the lineup proved to be frustrating for the Saginaw, Mich., native as each sign of improvement in practice was cancelled by a setback. It wasn’t until 10 weeks later in the Western Final against Edmonton that No. 39 was finally back on the field. Well, for a little while anyway.

“I thought I was going to go back out and have a good game,” said Hughes this week during an off-season visit to the Stampeders locker room at McMahon Stadium. “Both personally because I had missed so many games and for the fans who wanted to see me get back on the field and play.

“But I think I played all of about 28 minutes before I ended up hurting myself again. I actually tried to go back out and play but the leg just wouldn’t let me do it.”

His left foot finally mended, it was a high sprain to his right ankle that not only knocked Hughes out of the Western Final but also kept him out for the following week’s Grey Cup contest.

“I mean, it was pretty frustrating at first,” he admitted. “It was hard to cope with and to get myself to mentally and physically calm down and just say, ‘All right. It happens.’ ”

The best medicine Hughes could ask for was a 20-16 Calgary win over Hamilton in the championship game and the Stamps’ first Grey Cup since Hughes was a rookie in 2008.

“In all the previous years, we always felt we should have won and we came up short,” said Hughes. “Now that we’ve actually completed what we were supposed to do, it made the whole season worth it.

“Even just standing on the sidelines and watching, all the games I played and all the games I didn’t play, the whole season was definitely worth it.”

Hughes doesn’t even mind that for the first time in seven seasons with the Red and White, he didn’t lead the team in sacks in 2014. That honour went to fellow defensive end Shawn Lemon, who trailed Hughes 8-4 in the sack department following the Sept. 13 contest but bagged nine quarterbacks in the second half to finish with a team-best 13.

Lemon had taken over at the other defensive end spot for Cordarro Law, who parlayed a 14-sack season for Calgary in 2013 into a contract with the National Football League’s San Diego Chargers.

“Yeah, I’ve been playing with good defensive ends on the other side of me the last two years,” nodded Hughes. “It’s been pretty good. It takes a lot of pressure off of me. I’m happy for Cordarro Law and I’m happy for Shawn Lemon. I wouldn’t want to lose that sack title to anybody else but those two because I can legitimately say that they’re just as good as I am.”

That said, Hughes has designs on reclaiming his sack title and continues to work hard at rehabbing his ankle.

“I’m doing pretty good,” he reported. “I’m just trying to recover 100 per cent before I start moving around and preparing for next season.

“All I can do is take it day by day throughout the off-season. I’ve got to get healthy first. I’ve got to get back to 100 per cent before I can do anything else. I want to get into next year the way I started (2014).”