ARGONAUTS.CA STAFF
Football lost a legend last week. Mr. Everything, Chester ‘Cookie’ Gilchrist passed away peacefully from throat cancer while living in Pennsylvania.
Gilchrist left his mark with three CFL teams and three AFL teams, and even played, no, dominated the ORFU. He was a star who coined his own catch phrase, “Lookie, lookie, here comes Cookie!”, which he had emblazoned onto his van and served as a scoreboard warning to the opposition during games at Varsity Stadium.
How great were Cookie’s stats? Check it out in this edition of By the Numbers.
5,979 Total yards from scrimmage as a CFL player.
5,000 Amount in dollars the Saskatchewan Roughriders paid the Hamilton Tiger-Cats for Gilchrist’s rights following the 1957 season. Also the amount paid by the Buffalo Bills to the Argos to acquire his rights following the 1961 CFL season.
1,254 Yards was the single season career high in rushing yards he set during his only season in Saskatchewan.
42 Field goal attempts in his CFL career. Gilchrist attempted another 20 in his first year with Buffalo but didn’t kick after that.
39 Rank in all-time CFL rushing with 4,911 yards. He played just five CFL seasons.
29 Touchdowns in his first two AFL seasons in Buffalo.
27 Points scored by Gilchrist in one game for the Argos. It still stands as a team record.
12 Career interceptions while playing defence. In addition to playing running back, receiver and kicker, Cookie was also a defensive lineman, linebacker and defensive back. Former Argos LB Peter Martin, who was attending Western Ontario at the time, vividly remembers watching in awe as Cookie effortlessly transitioned from fullback to defensive end in a CFL game.
10 Consecutive all-star nominations (6 in the CFL and 4 in the AFL).
6 Different teams in 12 seasons in the CFL & AFL. He played for Hamilton, Saskatchewan and Toronto in the CFL, and Buffalo, Denver and Miami in the AFL.
2 Seasons spent playing in the ORFU with the Sarnia Imperials and Kitchener-Waterloo Dutchmen. Incidentally, Argos legends Zeke O’Connor and Nick Volpe coached for Toronto Balmy Beach against Cookie and the Dutchmen. To this day, Volpe maintains that the only way to defeat the Dutchmen back then was to beat Cookie.
0 Seasons of college football before signing with the Cleveland Browns the day after his high school graduation. He was released in training camp and did not play a down with the Browns. In a 2003 interview, Gilchrist was quoted as saying, “I told Jim Brown to his face that if I stayed with the Browns, nobody would have heard of him.”