He’s a North Star

What does it mean to be arguably the best running back in the Canadian Football League?

For Mike Pringle, establishing an all-star career north of the border has reaffirmed his worth as a player and softened the emotional blow of repeated rejection by the NFL.

No longer does he watch NFL games on television ready to call his agent if a running back is injured, hoping to fill a roster spot.

No longer does he worry about providing for his family.

After years of struggle and hard work, Pringle, 30, has found security with the Montreal Alouettes, a team that appreciates his ability and shares his belief that, given the chance, the former Kennedy High and Cal State Fullerton standout could play in any league.

“I never thought I would end up here, for the simple reason that the CFL doesn’t get a lot of publicity in the States,” Pringle said. “The money is not the same as in the NFL, but it was an opportunity for me to keep playing.

“I’m going to run the same whether I’m in the NFL or the CFL.”

There seems little doubt of that. In the pass-oriented CFL, where 12-man units have three plays instead of four to make a first down, Pringle has made his mark with a bruising style of running that spares no defensive player, least of all those in the secondary.

“I’ve seen him knock out a few safeties,” said Dave Ritchie, coach of the Alouettes. “He literally ran right over the top of them.”

Pringle, 5 feet 9 and 190 pounds, credits a regimen of weightlifting and running in the off-season for his continued success. He has led the CFL in rushing three of the last four seasons, gaining a league-record 1,972 yards in 1994 for the Baltimore Stallions, who moved to Montreal in 1996. The original Montreal Alouettes folded after the 1986 season.

Earlier this week, Ritchie said the Alouettes needed to make Pringle their first option on offense after placing more emphasis on passing. The strategy worked Thursday night when Pringle rushed for 113 yards in 25 carries to help the Alouettes (4-2) break a two-game losing streak with a 22-15 victory over the British Columbia Lions.

“The more he touches the ball, the better he gets,” Ritchie said.

Pringle, who leads the CFL with 588 yards rushing in 98 carries for a six-yard average, takes pride in having his number called in what would normally be considered passing situations.

“It puts a lot of pressure on me to succeed in those situations, when it’s second-and-six and second-and-seven,” he said. “My job is to get yards so [the team] will continue to feel confident in me.”

Pringle changed apartments this week, moving to downtown Montreal with his wife, Kenya, and 16-month-old son, Isaiah. Once the season ends in November, though, Pringle and his family will return to Sylmar, where he has resided his entire life. He works as a personal trainer in the off-season.

Pringle’s contract, which he said pays him about $150,000 a season, doesn’t compare to NFL standards for top running backs. But it is enough to live comfortably. Last year, Pringle bought and helped design a three-bedroom, three-bathroom house on about an acre of land in Sylmar.

“There are only two places I would consider living: L.A. and Atlanta,” he said. “My wife wants to live in Atlanta, but I told her that’s too far away from my mother.”

Annie Pringle has always been a source of strength and encouragement for her son, especially early in his professional career when he played for five teams in the NFL, World League and CFL within five years.

“She kept me sane when I was trying to get a job and nobody would jump on me,” he said.

Pringle believes he would have had a better chance of sticking with an NFL team if not for an incident that occurred during his senior year at Fullerton. He was implicated in a 1990 altercation outside a Fullerton nightclub in which an off-duty Pasadena police officer shot one of Pringle’s teammates, defensive end Clarence Siler.

Pringle claims he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the timing of the incident--a few days before the NFL draft--didn’t help. After leading the nation in all-purpose yardage and rushing for a then-NCAA-tying record of 352 yards in a game against New Mexico State, Pringle was discouraged when he was drafted in the sixth round by the Atlanta Falcons.

“Everybody says they should have been drafted higher, but according to the phone calls I received, [NFL] teams told me I was pretty high on their draft lists,” he said. “The incident knocked me down a few rounds.”

After spending a chunk of his rookie season on injured reserve, Pringle was released by the Falcons during the 1991 exhibition season after sustaining a neck injury.

From there, he bounced from the Sacramento Surge of the World League to the Edmonton Eskimos and Sacramento Gold Miners, both of the CFL. And he kept a watchful eye on the NFL.

“When I was going from team to team, it got to a point where you watch football games and wait for somebody to get hurt,” he said. “I don’t want to wish injury on anybody, but that’s the reality of it. You call your agent to call the Raiders or the Broncos because somebody just pulled a muscle or broke an ankle. It wasn’t a fun period.”

Pringle’s career took a turn for stability when he was sent to Baltimore in 1994 to complete a deal with the Gold Miners. His record-breaking rushing season ended in the Grey Cup, Canada’s Super Bowl, where the Stallions lost to the B.C. Lions, 26-23.

A year later, Baltimore returned to the Grey Cup and beat the Calgary Stampeders, 37-20, and Pringle was selected the CFL’s most outstanding player, ending a four-year hold on the award by Calgary quarterback Doug Flutie.

Despite his success in the CFL, Pringle longed for another shot in the NFL and signed as a free agent with the Denver Broncos in 1996. It turned out to be one of the most frustrating ordeals of his career. His playing time in the exhibition season was limited to special teams and he was released without ever logging a carry at running back.

“People can think whatever they want about the CFL, but somebody coming into the NFL with my credentials, it would seem to make sense to see what I can do,” he said.

Pringle still entertains thoughts of making an NFL roster. But at 30, that seems as unlikely as Pringle taking it easy on a defensive back.

A more realistic goal is Pringle’s desire to be elected to the CFL Hall of Fame and to finish as the No. 2 rusher in league history. He ranks eighth with 7,446 yards but is rapidly climbing the all-time list.

“I’ve stuck with football because it’s something I love to do,” he said. “As long as my body allows me to play, I’ll keep going out there.”