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Chester
Carlton "Cookie" Gilchrist came from the
Canadian Football League and took American pro
football by storm. With the Buffalo Bills in
1962, his first year in the league, he became its
first thousand-yard rusher, gaining (in a 14-game
season) 1,096 yards on 246 carries for a 5.1
yards-per-carry average and 13 touchdowns, an
all-time league record. He also caught 24
passes for 319 yards and two touchdowns, and kicked
14 extra points and seven field goals, the longest a
42-yarder.
His feats earned him
the United Press International and Associated Press
selections as the American Football League's Most
Valuable Player. He is in my
American Football League Hall of Fame.
The following brief story of Cookie's life is my
take on it, as I have learned of it, and observed it
as a fan. Others may interpret it differently,
and this article is followed by some of Cookie's own
words.
Cookie was a phenomenally gifted high
school football player in Brackenridge, PA, and a
good prospect for stardom at Michigan State, when
Paul Brown illegally signed him to a contract,
promised him he would play for the NFL's Browns,
then renéged
and told Cookie to go to
Canada. Cookie thus missed out on a
college education as well as the chance to be
drafted by both the NFL and AFL during the AFL-NFL
signing wars.
Gilchrist tore up the Ontario Rugby
Football Union, then starred in the Canadian
Football League, then went to the Bills for his
MVP year,
an
AFL Championship, and American Football League
immortality. Always outspoken, he did not hide
his revulsion of the way he felt players in general
and blacks in particular were used by the
system. Just after the 1964 season, this
resoluteness led to one of the AFL's finest
hours, when Cookie was a leader in the AFL All-Star
team's boycott of New Orleans, after black players
were demeaned and refused service there. This
was one of the first successful actions under the
nation's new civil rights laws.
But Gilchrist's refusal to tone
down his criticism of treatment he felt was unfair,
and in some cases his own pride, likely led to his
exclusion from the CFL Hall of Fame and the
Buffalo Bills' Wall of Fame.
The sketch above was drawn by Murray
Olderman, one of the first full-time pro football
writers, for his 1969 book, The Running Backs.
In it, Olderman picked the ten top running backs
ever, and he had Gilchrist at number eight, ahead of
Pro Football Hall of Famers Marion Motley and Lenny
Moore. Not only Motley and Moore, but every
one of the other ten, except for Cookie, are
members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Cookie belongs in the CFL
Hall of Fame, and on the Buffalo Bills' Wall
of Fame, and in the Pro Football Hall
of Fame.
In 2006, Gilchrist, a non-smoking,
non-drinking vegetarian, nevertheless contracted
throat cancer. After surgery, he was down to
175 pounds and is now undergoing treatment. He
has looked death in the eye, and as it was when he
played against the best, he did not blink.
His close encounter, and the
outpouring of support he received from friends and
fans across North America have led him to write the
letters reproduced below. One is to Larry
Felser, who recently described
Cookie's
fight with cancer; one is to the fans who
supported him; and one is to Ralph C. Wilson Jr.,
the owner of the Bills.
I always thought Cookie
was a special person. Now I know it. |
