The record shows Alondra Johnson’s Canadian Football League journey started in Vancouver with two seasons as a member of the BC Lions.

However, it wasn’t until 1991 when Johnson moved to the other side of the Rocky Mountains that the Los Angeles native’s career really took off.

“It’s when I came to Calgary that I realized I had found a home,” said Johnson. “It’s when Wally (Buono) invited me to Calgary to become a player with the Stampeders. The city embraced me and I think that was a defining moment in my career.”

The union between Johnson, a hard-nosed linebacker out of West Texas State, and the Stampeders was magical for both sides.

Buono took over the controls of the Stamps in 1990. Johnson, known to his friends as A.J., arrived a season later. Those were two of the touchstone events that launched one of the most successful eras in CFL history. The Red and White posted 11 straight winning seasons and made six trips to the Grey Cup championship game, winning three titles.

In looking back at those glorious days, Johnson notes that there was nothing mysterious or tricky about Calgary’s excellence.

“We had a very good nucleus of guys who stuck around year after year,” he said. “We went out and we expected to win.”

Johnson was one of the key figures on those dominating Stampeders clubs. Longtime teammate Eddie Davis once said of Johnson: “In my eyes, he’s the best linebacker to ever play the game of CFL football.”

Many respected football people agree the admittedly biased Davis has a valid point.

One statement that is beyond dispute is that the hell-raising, pain-inflicting linebacker, who fell an inch or two shy of six feet and played at a relatively modest 225 pounds or so, was one of the fiercest competitors in the history of the sport.

Johnson once described his playing style with the use of some homespun physics: “Speed-times-force-times-mass equals serious punishment.”

During Johnson’s head-bashing heyday, Buono was asked what made the ferocious defender tick.

“Who knows what happens inside him when he steps on the field?” Buono shrugged. “A.J.’s a very aggressive individual and he doesn’t know how to play any other way. When he’s effective, he’s running through people.”

Sure, Johnson won his share of awards in the CFL. He was All-Canadian in 1995, 1998 and 2000 and he was a division all-star on no fewer than six occasions. But no trophy exists to adequately honour one of the toughest hombres to set foot on the gridiron.

Johnson missed the final five games of the 1999 regular season with a severely torn knee ligament but returned to uniform weeks ahead of schedule to lead the Stampeders to a pair of playoff victories and a Grey Cup appearance.

In 2001, at age 36, he won a third championship and prompted this praise from then-Stampeders defensive coordinator Jim Daley: “Alondra Johnson is the best middle linebacker in the CFL. After all these years, he’s still the heart, the soul of this defence.”

It seemed the Stamps were always planning to find a younger and faster man to replace Johnson at middle linebacker, but the snarling bulldog just wouldn’t let go of the position. Sure enough, the supposedly over-the-hill Johnson was the Stamps’nominee as Outstanding Defensive Player again in 2002. Even at age 38, he was still wowing his younger teammates.

When linebacker George White first joined the Stampeders in 2003, he marveled at the ageless wonder who was still kicking butt and taking names.

“He’s sideline to sideline,” White raved. “Non-stop. And if you’re around the pile, watch out, he’ll lay you out.”

Other players were always bigger, stronger and faster, but no one could match Johnson’s drive.

“When I first came to Canada,” said Johnson, “I just wanted to be the best linebacker I could be. I just wanted to be the best player I could be. I didn’t plan the success that I had but I knew that I could become very good at my position if worked hard, trained hard and remained disciplined as far as getting myself ready to play. I knew that if I did all of that, then nothing but good things would happen. That’s the route that I took. I worked very hard for the success that I had. It didn’t come easy, I can tell you that. But it was well worth it. The Canadian Football League is a great league for anyone who wants to play football, without a doubt.”

Buono and Johnson had an interesting relationship. Both men possessed iron wills and each could be a little headstrong at times, but the mutual respect was apparent and the two would spend 12 mostly wonderful years together in Calgary.

“With Wally,” said Johnson, “it was tough love but he showed me how to be a better person and to accept responsibility. He molded my character in a way because he taught me that no matter what I do on the field, it also matters what you do off the field. He said it’s better to be a good person than a good football player. Wally had me over for dinner, I got to know his family. He taught me a lot of things.”

Buono left after the 2002 season and two years later, during Matt Dunigan’s ill-fated campaign as Stampeders boss, Johnson was cut loose. The linebacker freely admits he was angry with the way Dunigan handled his release, but Johnson says the unceremonious parting of ways has no impact on the warm regard he has for Calgary and the Stampeders.

“It’s not bittersweet at all,” he says. “Everything I did in the CFL is very sweet. I have no regrets with the choices that I made in my football career. I felt that it all worked out the way that God planned it. I just hold on to who I am and try to improve myself every day. If you do that, good things will happen.”