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Last year, John White came into Edmonton Eskimos training camp as the man.

The coaching staff and management put so much faith in him that he was the only veteran American running back on the roster.

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That’s how confident they were in his ability to pick up right where he left off a sophomore CFL season that saw him earn 6.9 yards per carry in 2014.

What they couldn’t foresee was an injury that ended his 2015 season before it could even begin, announcing White ruptured his left Achilles tendon early on in training camp.

“The day after the scrimmage in a special-teams drill, I did a second rep and it just didn’t work out,” White recalled. “(GM Ed Hervey) came running over quickly, he was sitting down across half the field and he heard a big ol’ pop.

“Sitting in Spruce Grove’s hotel, I was just sad.”

The jury’s still out on whether watching his teammates go on to win the Grey Cup without him made things better or worse.