Played for: Sarnia Imperials (1954), Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen (1955), Hamilton Tiger-Cats (1956–1957), Saskatchewan Roughriders (1958), Toronto Argonauts (1959–1961), Buffalo Bills (1962–1964), Denver Broncos (1965), Miami Dolphins (1966), Denver Broncos (1967)
Cookie Gilchrist [Canadian football Stats] and [American football Stats] - FB (Fullback)
CFL: 849 carries, 4,911 yards, 5.8 per carry, 28 touchdowns, 86 receptions for 1,068 yards, 5 TD, 12 interceptions, 2 TD
AFL: 1,010 carries, 4,293 yards, 4.3 per carry, 37 touchdowns; 110 receptions, 1,135 yards, 6 TD
Pro Total: 1,859 carries for 9,204 yards (5.0 per carry), 65 rushing touchdowns, 196 receptions for 2,203 yards and 11 TD - 78 total touchdowns
Grey Cup champion (1957)
AFL championship (1964)
AFL Most Valuable Player (1962 - UPI & AP)
First-team All-AFL (1962, 1964, 1965)
Second-team All-AFL (1963)
ORFU All-Star (1955)
CFL All-Star (1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960)
AFL All-Star (1962, 1963, 1964, 1965)
Once upon a time, Cookie Gilchrist was among the most noted players of football leagues in two different countries. But conflicts of personality in a time as turbulent as possible for confident black men and a body that aged him out of football before he turned 33 saw him never named to a Hall of Fame. You might wonder, hey, why include the CFL in this discussion? Because it matters to understanding just how good Cookie Gilchrist really in what I think is a special case. Cookie Gilchrist was a star player in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania. Gilchrist did not go to college, because his talents were so readily apparent that Paul Brown of the Cleveland Browns had a contract ready for him just as he was winding up to play in the pro leagues in 1954. Gilchrist did not make the cut in preseason, so he decided to take his talents to where else but Canada, which at that moment in time had football teams in three different "Football Unions" (the pros with the Western Interprovincial and the Interprovincial Rugby to go with the amateur Ontario Rugby Union) with 110-yard fields and a three-down format. In the two amateur years of 1954 and 1955, he ran for 800 yards in each year. Starting in 1956, with the dawn of the pros in the CFL, Gilchrist played for the first of three different Canadian football teams and played a wide variety of positions on the field beyond fullback that saw him catch passes and play defense. It was with Hamilton in 1957 (the second season of the CFL) that Gilchrist earned his first pro title. He ran for 958 yards with nine total touchdowns (7 rushing, 2 INT for TD) as the Tiger-Cats defeated Winnipeg in the Grey Cup. He later claimed that the Browns asked about bringing him to the NFL but he apparently declined because they wanted him to stop dating the woman he was seeing (who was white). Gilchrist ran for 1,254 yards for Saskatchewan in 1958 and seemed to be on the path to a big career with Toronto, where he played three seasons before friction with management led him to go on waivers and eventually find his way to playing in the AFL in 1962. In total, between the ORFU/West/East, he had made the All-Star team six times.
Gilchrist would play in just six years for the AFL, but he sure made his mark known as a 6'3 250-pound fullback. Granted, it got to a slow start. The Bills (comprised of one HOFer, tackle Billy Shaw) lost each of their first five games under first-year head coach Lou Saban and quarterback Al Dorow (who somehow was replaced by a slightly better player in Warren Rabb), with Gilchrist running for under 60 yards four times, although he did have a touchdown in three of the five games. He proceeded to cut loose against San Diego in Week 6, rushing a season-high 25 times for 124 yards with a touchdown (while also catching a receiving TD) as the Bills broke the drought 35-10. From there, Gilchrist kept going, where he had a seven-game streak with at least one rushing touchdown on his way to five 100-yard games leading up to Week 14. Needing less than 60 yards for history, Gilchrist ran for 143 yards versus the New York Titans to become the first AFL rusher with 1,000 yards in a season. His two touchdowns finished off his season with 13 (tied with Abner Haynes), a league high as the Bills finished 7-6-1. Gilchrist won the AP and UPI MVP while Len Dawson won the TSN MVP*. With a slightly heavier load to bear in 1963 that saw the full arrival of Jack Kemp at QB (for the most part), the Bills had another slow start in 1963, where they didn't win a game until Week 5. Gilchrist did not have a 100-yard game until Week 9 but the Bills persevered late in the year, and the Week 14 game was a highlight of itself. At War Memorial Stadium, Gilchrist faced the New York Jets and ran 36 times for 243 yards and five touchdowns in a 45-14 wallop. It was the most rushing yards in one game since Spec Sanders ran for 250 in 1947 for the AAFC*. He then ran for 114 yards on 31 carries in a narrow 19-10 win over the Jets the following week that combined with a Patriots loss to set up a tie at 7-6-1 in the Eastern Division that necessitated a "playoff". It didn't go well, as Gilchrist ran eight times for seven yards, fumbled once and even missed a field goal in the 26-8 loss at home. In total, Gilchrist ran for 979 yards and 12 touchdowns, a league high.
1964 was a peak time for all involved. Gilchrist led the league in yards with 981 on 230 carries for six touchdowns (which was a league high alongside Daryle Lamonica and Sid Blanks) but most significantly the Bills clicked on all cylinders for a 12-2 finish. In the AFL Championship Game versus San Diego (who lacked Lance Alworth due to injury and lost Keith Lincoln early in the game) on December 26, 1964, Gilchrist ran for 122 yards on 16 carries and caught 2 passes for 22 yards as Pete Gogolak kicked two field goals to go along with touchdowns runs by Wray Carlton and Kemp to win 20-7; Buffalo was a championship city at last. It that was the last game played by Gilchrist in Buffalo. Gilchrist was traded in February of 1965 to the Denver Broncos for Billy Joe. There was one last flicker for Cookie that year, as he ran for 954 yards on 252 carries for 3.8 yards a carry for six touchdowns on a terrible Broncos team that went 4-10. His six touchdowns were actually a league-high (for the 4th and final time) alongside Wray Carlton, Paul Lowe, and Curtis McClinton. He was named to the All-Star team and served as a key force for boycotting the game away from the original intended location of New Orleans due to bad experiences several black players went through in the city (instead, the game was played in Houston). Gilchrist missed the first six games of the 1966 season and by then he was playing in Miami, where in six starts (eight appearances) he ran 72 times for 262 yards. He recorded his final career touchdown on a catch on October 23. He then had 10 carries for Denver in 1967 as knee injuries finally stopped Gilchrist from playing football, having ran for 9,000 total yards in two football leagues.
Gilchrist either was refused entry into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame or rejected it personally (he claimed in a 2010 interview that the country treated him terribly from 1956 to 2010 and that the Hall asked him to treat a certain person nicely). Gilchrist was not inducted into the Bills Wall of Fame until after his death; Gilchrist died in 2011 at the age of 75, where a brain scan revealed he was stage four for having CTE (making him one of over 300 players to have had CTE, which come from hits to the head). At any rate, Gilchrist has never been a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. For all players in the 1960s, Gilchrist managed to rank 12th in touchdowns (and 15th for players from 1962 to 1967) despite playing 65 games (as seen here*), where he ranked behind legends such as Jim Taylor and who else but Gale Sayers; Sayers and Gilchrist played nearly the same amount of games (less than 70) and each ran for only over 4,000 yards with over 35+ rushing touchdowns, and four All-Star selections. Gilchrist had an MVP; Sayers had 5 All-Pro selections...and only Sayers made the Hall. In the history of the pro leagues (NFL, AFL, AAFC), Gilchrist was the third player to lead a league in rushing touchdowns in four seasons but the only one to do it in four consecutive seasons (Steve Van Buren did it from 1945, 1947–1949 and Jim Brown did it from 1957–1959, 1963, 1965). No player has led the league in touchdowns four times in their career since Gilchrist did so (Derrick Henry is the most recent to get to three, by the way).
Famously confident in his abilities and just as famous for management squabbles, Gilchrist deserved better, and there were teammates that said that if he played much later on, he would've been an even bigger star. His post-career effort to make a "United Athletes Coalition of America" (for former players trying to adjust to life after football) clearly meant that he cared about more than just the game itself, but circumstances always found a way to screw him, In my view, he shone extremely bright and deserved all the attention required for how he made defenders crumble, whether it was for America or Canada.
On behalf of the Unsung Hall of Fame, it is my privilege to welcome Cookie Gilchrist to the Hall.
N O T E S
*In the ten-year history of the AFL, there were multiple MVPs for a season three times because of how the voting went for the Associated Press (AP), United Press International (UPI), and The Sporting News (TSN)
For a concise biography on Gilchrist, check out https://profootballresearchers.com/archives/Website_Files/Coffin_Corner/24-02-933.pdf
Or his autobiography The Cookie That Did Not Crumble, along with Chris Garbarino
*More on the All-American Football Conference later.
*Yes, Jack Kemp had 40 rushing touchdowns in the 1960s, with the next closest at the position of QB being Roman Gabriel with 24. Only Otto Graham had more rushing TDs for a QB when Kemp retired. More on him later.
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