Perry Lefko

Perry Lefko keeps you connected to all the news in the CFL on Sportsnet.ca.

Jesse Lumsden has been unable to beat the injury bug.

Ever since he dominated Canadian university football, expectations were high for Jesse Lumsden as a professional football player.

He was big, strong, had a football pedigree, spoke articulately and had poster-boy looks.

He also had two distinct qualities - he was Canadian and he was white - that made him unique among feature running backs.

Whether you're talking the National Football League or the Canadian Football League, running back is a position played almost exclusively by blacks. That is not a racist comment; merely one of fact.

You can scan modern-day football and find few examples of white running backs, in particular ones who started and made an impact. John Riggins and Craig James are a couple of note in recent NFL history.

If you want to go back to the '70s, you can point to Larry Csonka as a dominant white running back.

In the '60s, there was Paul Hornung.

It is such a topic of note that prior to this year's NFL Draft there was a story about Stanford running back Toby Gerhart, and whether his chances of making in the pros would be affected by the colour of his Caucasian skin.

In an article in the Washington Examiner on Gerhart's chances of playing given his skin colour, a former NFL general manager is quoted anonymously as saying: "No one (in NFL management) cares about that stuff."

In an interview with Mike Silver of Yahoo Sports, Gerhart said race played a part in his interview with one team leading up to the draft.

"One team I interviewed with asked me about being a white running back," Gerhart said. "They asked if it made me feel entitled, or like I felt I was a poster child for white running backs. I said, 'No, I'm just out there playing ball. I don't think about that.' I didn't really know what to say."

Gerhart was drafted in the second round by Minnesota, a selection which was not considered unfair, inappropriate or prejudicial in any way. He was projected as a second- or third-round pick.

So now let's look at the CFL, which traditionally has been more open about playing players regardless of their skin, colour or size. A starting white running back is almost an anomaly. The last white running back of any importance happened to be Josh Ranek, who had three 1,000-yard rushing seasons with the Ottawa Renegades between 2003-2005.

Sean Millington, a black, was a talented Canadian running back with B.C. in 2000, tallying more than 1,000 rushing yards.

At 6'2, weighing some 225 pounds and with serious speed for a big man, Lumsden resembled the athletic build of Millington, although he was faster. He wanted to try the NFL following his splendid career at McMaster University before committing himself to the Canadian game on which he was born and raised. He is the son of Neil Lumsden, a bruising running back in the '70s and '80, but without his son's speed.

After he was cut twice by NFL teams, both times impacted by injuries, Jesse Lumsden set his sights squarely on the CFL. He was a first-round draft pick of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 2005. Being from Burlington and a star at McMaster, he was a perfect fit in many ways.

In the CFL, Canadian running backs are traditionally backups to the Americans, who play as imports. A Canadian running back who can start and be effective is a rare commodity, allowing an import to start in another key position.

In 2008, Lumsden seemed poised to put it all together. He was leading the league in rushing yardage before a shoulder injury sidelined him after nine games. He was shelved for the season and signed with Edmonton as a free agent last season. His dad played for the Eskimos, and once again it was deemed a good fit, although his contract was based heavily on playing time because of his past history with injuries.

His season was ended early in the first regular-season game on an innocent looking hit to the shoulder he previously hurt. He does not have medical clearance to play, hence the Eskimos waived him on Wednesday.

He is now free to sign with any other team, but his history of injuries makes him a risky proposition, even though he has claimed often he is not injury prone.

Maybe his future in athletics will be in bobsleigh. He adapted to the sport quickly and was a member of one of the two-man and four-man teams that represented Canada in the recent Olympics.

He would seem to have a bright future in that sport, although he has not given up hope of playing football again. Time will tell.

He may have been the last of a short list of starting white Canadian running back in the CFL and overall white running backs in pro football.