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Jon Cornish has led the CFL in rushing for three years in row.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail

Several years ago, when Jon Cornish had already established himself as a star in the CFL, his girlfriend's father wondered when he would get a job.

Football, Cornish was told, was "not a job I could rely on for the future." And so Cornish set out to find some honest work and secured employ at the Market Mall branch of the Toronto-Dominion Bank in Calgary.

Cornish took on financial services like he attacks the gridiron, a field where has always been underestimated. Cornish didn't start at running back until his last year at the University of Kansas, where he then set the school's rushing record. On the Calgary Stampeders, he wasn't a full-time starter until he was 27. He then won three consecutive rushing titles, as well as the league's MVP last year, and this Sunday leads his team into the Grey Cup against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, favoured to win the trophy that has eluded Calgary for half a decade.

Back at the bank, Cornish – with a degree in psychology and women's studies – knew he had work to do. He had grown up in the Vancouver suburbs in a family with NDP inclinations, and he needed added academic oomph. He sought out the counsel of Jim Davidson, executive chairman of the Calgary investment bank FirstEnergy Capital.

What impressed Davidson most was Cornish never put on an ego, was never afraid to ask a bunch of dumb questions.

"He was fearless," Davidson said. "He listened. He took notes. He was hard-working and methodical – probably a lot of the attributes that were making him successful as an athlete."

Cornish, in his spare time a financial sales services rep at TD, has completed his Canadian Securities Course and is studying for the first of three difficult tests to become a Chartered Financial Analyst. "It's dry," Cornish said with a smile this week at BC Place.

In an earlier interview, the expansive mind that is Cornish emerged when speaking about his goals in finance. He aims to advise pension funds and institutional clients about where to invest their money. "I want to help them understand Alberta has a lot to offer," said Cornish, sounding like a typical banker. Then: "Unrestricted capitalism might not necessarily be the best thing all the time." And he cited behavioural economics: "People aren't rational. People make weird decisions."

Most of all, Cornish wants to win, as he always has.

"I'm a driven individual," he said of his work at TD. "I want to help people. I want to do the best job I can. It's defined everything I've ever done, to do it as well as possible."

The man in black

This week is a performance – and Cornish wears the mantle of his name on the marquee with the ease of one who has long been comfortable with precisely who he is. This is a homecoming, and Cornish relishes it.

At the Vancouver airport on arrival Tuesday, Cornish dressed like a star, the man in black.

Black cowboy hat, black cowboy boots, black Wranglers, a big belt buckle and a dark paisley collared shirt. This is a man who might have been a prince of this city. He was raised in New Westminster, attended St. Thomas More Collegiate and in 2000 was the star on a provincial championship team – a title won at BC Place.

He went to Kansas and was passed over by the B.C. Lions, instead drafted by Calgary. So he arrives home this week in red. There is the image of Cornish in uniform outside BC Place, rendered as a giant. And he arrives on a mission, a man on whose shoulders a team's football redemption rests.

The Stampeders last won a Grey Cup in 2008, Cornish's second season, when he was a backup and mostly played special teams.

Thereafter, the Stamps haven't been able to translate regular-season success into playoff wins. In 2012, the Stamps lost the Grey Cup to Toronto in a game Calgary bobbled and let slip away.

Cornish managed 57 yards on 15 carries and lost a fumble. Last year, Calgary had the best record in the league, like it did this year, and blew the West Division final at home to Saskatchewan.

"The entire last 18 months has been the build-up to this," Cornish said Wednesday.

Cornish, a star in a position in which few Canadians have ever excelled, was this season beset by injuries, including a major concussion. He played only half the schedule, nine games, and yet still won his third successive rushing title.

"He's the best player in this league," declared teammate Nik Lewis on Wednesday.

"I think everybody knows it. You know it. Who's better than Cornish? If he's in uniform, he's the best player in this league."

Create the flow

Jon Cornish hugged James Duthie. On Wednesday, before the media scrums at BC Place, the TSN host was doing a comedic segment with Cornish, entwining/confusing hockey and football.

It got Cornish thinking about his off-season work. He's a tape-watching fiend. He loves to study running backs like Gale Sayers, the NFL Hall of Famer who was his forebear at Kansas – "he could see in 360." After last season, however, Cornish turned his eyes to hockey. Mario Lemieux. Wayne Gretzky. He studied "a lot of Gretz."

"His mindset," Cornish said. "Gretz's natural understanding of the game, the flow of the game. He didn't see the goalie. He saw the holes."

Then it turned a little zen. Cornish is the type of guy who throws out Chinese proverbs in scrums. He often meditates. He spoke about a boat on the water, and the ripples. Be the boat. Gretzky was the boat. Create the flow. On the football field, Cornish creates the flow. He ran for almost eight yards a carry this season. And in the West Division final, when Edmonton held him to 54 yards on the ground, he caught balls and gained 120 receiving yards.

"I'm out here," said Cornish of playing by instincts, "and I just do."

Football is ephemeral

Growing up, watching college football, Cornish was awed on television by the prowess of the Big 12 Conference. Nebraska. Texas. But as he was finishing high school, he had not garnered a lot of Division I attention. Then, with some help from TSN broadcaster and youth football coach Farhan Lalji, Cornish connected with several prominent schools. Kansas, a Big 12 school, offered a scholarship. "It was," remembered Cornish of his decision, "an instant yes."

Kansas was tough at first. The demands of Div I football were extreme. Cornish grated. He slowly settled in, and then surged. His senior season in 2006, his only year as a starter, he led the Big 12 in rushing, and was ninth in all of Div I as he set the school's rushing record of 1,457 yards – which still stands.

"I liked his stubbornness," said Pat Henderson, Cornish's running back coach in his first three seasons at Kansas and today an assistant athletics director. "I wouldn't say everybody on our coaching staff shared that. He had to learn to deal with pain and injury. He did, and he became a great player."

Cornish had been forecast as a late-round NFL draft pick. He wasn't chosen. He received numerous offers to tryout, but he spurned those and went to Calgary, and started to work. First on special teams, then as a running back. "I wanted a change of pace," Cornish said on return to Canada. "I wanted to rediscover my love of football."

Cornish turned 30 in early November. His football career nears its conclusion. Cornish was 26 when he began to usurp Joffrey Reynolds, the Stamps' previous star running back, when Reynolds was 31. Cornish has grown up. Two years ago, he mooned a crowd. Seven years ago, he told an interviewer, "I'm an atheist." His mother Margaret Cornish is the rector at St. Alban Anglican Church in the Vancouver suburbs. "Jonathan said that?" Rev. Cornish said seven years ago. "I think he was just trying to be provocative."

On Sunday, at BC Place, the championship is in Cornish's hands. A career capstone is within reach. And then, eventually, there will be banking, or maybe even a run for Parliament – an idea he has on occasion floated.

"Not being in a position to walk away from the game is a negative thing," Cornish said. "If you can prepare yourself, you're so much better off. Football is finite. It's ephemeral."

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