The Charleston Hughes Effect

By Dave Naylor

Great careers in the Canadian Football League sometimes begin in the most humble of ways.

And so it was that Charleston Hughes attended a free-agent workout in Detroit back in 2008, where a young scout for the Calgary Stampeders was in attendance.

John Murphy, now the vice-president player personnel for the Toronto Argonauts, barely had his feet wet in Canadian football when he attended the workout that day. But he’d heard that his team’s new defensive co-ordinator, Chris Jones, loved athletic defenders who might end up as either linebackers or defensive ends in the CFL.

“Charleston was one of the guys who lines up with his group and he runs a 40 in the mid-to-high four-fives. He was a linebacker but I knew in the CFL game he had enough size to be a pass rusher,” Murphy said. “So as soon as he skirts past me, I turn around and it’s a `who are you and where are you from?’ kind of thing. I asked him what he played and he said `mostly linebacker but yeah, I can rush the passer.’”

Little did Murphy know, he’d just stumbled upon one of the CFL’s all-time great pass rushers.

“I got on the phone and called (then-Calgary player personnel director Jim Barker) and said `I don’t know how this negotiation list thing works but there’s a kid here who is 6-foot-1, 240, just ran four-fives twice and is a thoroughly explosive athlete. Take it for what it’s worth but I’m here and he’s right in front of me.’”

Murphy also noticed that Hughes had come from an NCAA Division II school called Northwood, located in Midland, Mich. about 100 miles from Detroit. It was the same school that had produced Chris Wilson, a former BC Lions defensive lineman who was then playing with the NFL’s Washington Redskins.

“When he told me he’d played at Northwood that hit my ear because there was a Northwood guy who’d excelled in the CFL. So it wasn’t like this was a crazy scenario that this guy might be a guy.”

The Stamps added Hughes to their negotiation list. A few months later he arrived at training camp, shifting between linebacker and defensive end as he competed for a spot. But as so often happens, Hughes got caught in a numbers game and the Stamps ended up cutting him.

“My dumb ass sent him home and we kept a guy named Fontaine Hunter,” said Jones, now a defensive assistant with the NFL’s Cleveland Browns. “(Hunter) got hurt in game 1, Charleston came back and the rest is history.”

Perhaps there is no greater testament to Charleston Hughes than the fact that he has never played on a team with a losing record during his 12-year career.

One hundred and thirty sacks after the Stampeders sent him home at the end of his first training camp, Hughes continues to make his teams and the players around him better.