The Canadian Football League has been a launching pad into the NFL for stars such as Warren Moon and Jeff Garcia. A launching pad into the world of poker?

Not so much. But there is one man who fits the bill: T.J. Cloutier.

A former tight end over five seasons with the Montreal Alouettes and Toronto Argonauts, Cloutier was a three-sport athlete in high school, and attended Berkeley on football and baseball scholarships.

The Albany, Calif. native appeared in the 1959 Rose Bowl, but left college due to financial hardship and was drafted into the U.S. Army. After an injury cut his CFL career short, Cloutier attempted to follow in his father’s footsteps as a businessman, starting a wholesale food company with his family near San Francisco.

Both the company and his first marriage didn’t work out, so Cloutier signed up for a six-month stint on a Texas oilrig. It’s there that he discovered poker.

Cloutier hasn’t looked back. His resume includes 51 tournament victories with at least a $500 buy-in, four World Series of Poker bracelets (including all the Omaha events, a feat nobody else has achieved), and a series of successful books.

Although he hasn’t won the main event at the WSOP, he entered 2005 in third place on their all-time earnings list at nearly $3 million and won another event in 2005. The father of six even has a hand named after him: the J-9 of clubs, after flopping three flushes in one year.

When he isn’t traveling, Cloutier lives in Richadson, Tex. with his second wife, Joy.