One thing Calgary’s Stampeders have been blessed with over the soon to be 65 years of operation has been great running backs. You can go back to Paul Rowe in the 1940s right up to today’s amazing Joffrey Reynolds, who has led the club in rushing for the past five years.

In between there have been the likes of Lovell Coleman in the 1960s, Willie Burden in the 70s, James Sykes in the late 70s and early 80s and, of course, Kelvin Anderson, who in the 90s was the club’s leading rusher for a record seven straight seasons.

But a jewel in the bunch was a guy who came onto the scene first in 1956 to make the first of what would be three stints with the club. That, of course, was Earl “The Earthquake” Lunsford, who turned his back on being drafted 305th overall in the National Football League’s Philadelphia Eagles to leave Oklahoma State University for the Canadian Football League and the Stampeders.

He stayed but one year that time, leading the team in scoring with eight touchdowns and leading the squad in rushing yards with 1,283 on 216 carries.

Lunsford, who had a degree in geology from Oklahoma State, then left the game for two seasons as he returned to the United States to serve in the U.S. Army.

But football was his game and in 1959 he was back with the Red and White. He not only led the team in rushing that year but also the following three seasons and in the end had carried the football for just shy of 7,000 yards. He is still third on the all-time Stamps list in that category.

In Earthquake’s best season, which was 1961, he rushed for 1,794 yards and many veteran Stampeders followers will remember that by doing so he became the first running back to rush for a mile in one season.

His best individual performance, at least from a scoring standpoint, came in 1962 when he scored five touchdowns against the Edmonton Eskimos. His mark of 55 touchdowns on the ground remains a Stampeders record to this day.

The native of Stillwater, Okla., who was a CFL all-star in 1961 and a Western all-star in 1960 and 1961, retired at 29 and returned to the States, where he picked up a PhD in education at Oregon and, in typical Lunsford fashion, helped coach the school team.

Lunsford’s third stop with the Stampeders was as the club’s general manager, a job he held from 1985 until 1987 when, in the midst of spearheading the famed “Save our Stamps” program, Lunsford was fired, in part, for refusing the fire his head coach of the time, Bob Vespaziani.

A CFL Hall of Fame member since 1983 and on the McMahon Stadium Wall of Fame since 1994, Lunsford retired to Fort Worth, Tex., and in ironic fashion passed away at 74 on September 3, 2008, 46 years to the day of his five-touchdown performance as a Stampeder.

One of the greats of all-time was Earl “The Earthquake” Lunsford.