Simply put, Brigance flourished. He was in many ways, the Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Stallions, running on the same Memorial Stadium field that No. 52 would roam beginning in September 1996. He was a dominating player for the Stallions and led them to a pair of Grey Cup games, which is the CFL’s Super Bowl.
“He was truly an ambassador for the CFL in Baltimore,” said Mike Gathagan, who was the Stallions media relations director in 1994-95, but who came from a television sports background at WMAR-TV. “We were a new team, and we needed a star, a guy who was good on the field and good in the locker room and good in the community.”
Brigance did every radio show, every newspaper interview, and every community event with kids, old Colts Corrals fan clubs, hospitals, schools – you name it. Brigance was bright, articulate, handsome and warmly embraced everywhere he went on behalf of the Stallions.
“He was really our ‘go-to’ guy for everything we did because he loved doing it, and he was just so good with people,” Gathagan said. “In 1995, our second season, when our schedule came out we were trying to sell tickets and get Baltimore excited about us during the summer that Cal Ripken was in the middle of The Streak, and we called him and he said, ‘Let’s tee it up and get out there.’ We went to every radio station and all four TV stations that day for live hits with O.J.”
Colts legend Tom Matte, a part owner of the Stallions, regaled Brigance in those days with stories about the Johnny Unitas and Bert Jones days. Remember: the Ravens didn’t exist in 1994, and Brigance found a Baltimore community that was awash in enthusiasm for football, but very anti-NFL after losing the Colts to Indianapolis in 1984. Matte called Brigance his “favorite player.”
“Our equipment manager once told O.J. that he led the league in complete sentences,” Gathagan said. “O.J. always had that ‘it’ factor. He was intelligent and articulate. He was a leader on the field, in the locker room, and just about everywhere he went.”
Brigance’s versatility in the CFL game allowed him to play rush end or middle linebacker, and Mathews assembled a team around him that was outstanding as the Stallions went to the Grey Cup championship game in both of their seasons in Baltimore – both led by the defense of Brigance’s units. In 1994, the home-standing B.C. Lions beat the Stallions in Vancouver, 26-23 in front of 55,097 at B.C. Place. In 1995, just 13 days after Art Modell announced his intentions to move the Cleveland Browns to Baltimore, the Stallions won the Grey Cup beating the Calgary Stampeders 37-20 in Regina, Saskatchewan on a day when wind chills were minus-20 degrees on the Canadian plains.
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Brigance knew the Stallions were done, but later called it a “blessing from God.” He said he would’ve stayed in Baltimore and continued playing in the CFL and wouldn’t have tried to get an NFL job if the Stallions had remained in tact and Modell never moved the Browns to Maryland.
The enthusiasm for the Stallions carried over to the Ravens immediately, and 33rd Street was full of purple just nine months later when a kid named Ray Lewis came to town as the new middle linebacker. For Brigance and many like him, those seasons in the CFL allowed them to continue their football education and improvement after college in the hopes that some NFL scout would see them and give them a chance.
No NFL scout was going to fly to Vancouver, but many were within driving distance of Baltimore, and there was always a full row of them at every Stallions game at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore.
Seven former Stallions eventually played in the NFL — Brigance, Denver running back Mike Pringle, Miami guard Mark Dixon, Pittsburgh punter Josh Miller, Pittsburgh tackle Shar Pourdanesh, Green Bay long snapper Rob Davis, and Washington special-teamer Reggie Givens. Perhaps the best Stallions player of them all, Elfrid Payton, a 6-foot-1, 235-pound rush end went into the CFL Hall of Fame in 2010, but never played a down in the NFL. Pringle is also a CFL Hall of Famer.
Every once in a while you can spot a CFL pennant or an old ticket stub around Baltimore, but there’s still a fire burning somewhere for those Grey Cup teams of 1994-95. Every year in the fall, on his birthday, Brigance still gets a greeting card from an anonymous Baltimore sports fan who simply signs the card: “A Stallions Fan.”
