Lefko on Gilchrist: Original Cookie Monster
Posted February 7, 2012 7:12 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A former Canadian Football League and American Football League star, known as much for his rebellious behaviour off the field as his amazing talent on it, goes into seclusion, but is found more than 30 years later by a retired police detective who tracked him down on Facebook. The two become friends, and after the football player dies, his life story is crafted into a book by the detective, who had never written a book. If this sounds a little hard to believe, like something out of a Law & Order episode, well, it’s the backdrop for a fascinating true story in a recently-released book about Carlton Chester (Cookie) Gilchrist, the original Cookie Monster.
The book, entitled The Cookie That Did Not Crumble, is largely taken from Gilchrist’s manuscripts and a screenplay, which might never have amounted to anything were it not for the chance encounter with Chris Garbarino, a retired New York City undercover cop who was a fan of his and wanted to contact him for an autograph.
“All of the books talked about Cookie being outspoken, but also an enigma,” Garbarino wrote in the book. “The more I read about this great of the AFL, the greater my desire grew to know more about his story.”
Purely on a lark, Garbarino did a Facebook search of Cookie Gilchrist in August, 2010. Much to his surprise, a match came back with no picture or information to indicate he was in fact the onetime great football player. Garbarino sent back a friend request with an added message that he thought Gilchrist was one of the greatest players to ever grace the gridiron and asked if he was planning to do any autograph sessions. A response came back a few days later saying his request had been accepted, and the person who had sent it included a message identifying him as “the original Cookie Monster and Peck’s Bad Boy.” He had responded because of Garbarino’s avatar, which included his young daughter and that he wanted the children of today to know the truth about what football really does to its forgotten heroes.
They emailed back and forth, and when Garbarino mentioned he had become friends with Charlie Hennigan, a onetime record-setting receiver with the Houston Oilers, Gilchrist replied enthusiastically. He asked for Garbarino’s phone number and for permission to call him. Garbarino happily obliged. Gilchrist called almost immediately and began what would be the first of many phone conversations and later meetings with Garbarino. As the two began to learn more about one another, Gilchrist sensed a kinship, including the fact both had experience in an inter-racial marriage.
For Gilchrist, who later became estranged from his wife and family, it became a major issue in the 1950s during the height of racial segregation, which became one of the many battles Gilchrist fought. He was one of the key players who forced the cancellation of the 1965 AFL All-Star Game in New Orleans after the black players refused to play there due to the racial discrimination. The game was later moved to Houston, but Gilchrist became targeted for his involvement and it impacted on his career, including a trade from the Buffalo Bills, with which he just won his second league rushing title and a league championship.
He’d already had an issue with the Bills for walking out on the team the previous year during a game in which he didn’t like the play calling. He was only allowed back after he apologized to his teammates, some of whom pleaded with the coaching staff to reinstate him. He also had to apologize at a news conference, in which the team wrote the words he would say but didn’t necessarily embrace.
“I had gained a reputation during my career and had been pegged as uppity, which was a term given to Negroes who stood up for their rights,” Gilchrist wrote in one of his many manuscripts. “Regardless of race, if I saw or experienced, something that I felt was unjust, I opened my mouth and said my piece. I was blessed with many physical gifts such as size and strength, which helped make me a great football player. The one thing I was born without was a filter, which at the time was a detriment to being a Negro in America.”
He rejected an induction into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 1983 because of a longtime disagreement with Jake Gaudaur, who had been the general manager in Hamilton when Gilchrist played there and later became Commissioner of the CFL. Gilchrist, who won the Grey Cup with Hamilton in 1957, began his pro career in Canada after giving up a chance to go to college when offered a contract by the AFL Cleveland Browns, who later reneged on the agreement.
While Gilchrist’s words are stunning, what happened to him in the brief time he and Garbarino came together is hauntingly real. Gilchrist’s volatile temper alternately explodes and deflates like a flick of a switch, and through it all a person whom he barely knew suddenly became his closest — and perhaps only — confidant.
After his death and following research on his brain, which was donated at his own request, it was discovered Gilchrist suffered from Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, which is a degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes and others with a history of brain trauma, triggered by multiple concussions. The study found Gilchrist suffered from the most severe classification of the brain disease, and that he started the effects of the condition as early as 1971, about three years after he retired.
Nearing the end of his life, Gilchrist had told Garbarino he wanted to come back into the public eye after all those years living as a recluse and wanted Garbarino to become his manager. Gilchrist had crafted a screenplay about his life, which opened with a scene in which the former football player is on his deathbed recounting his life to his closest friend.
“He was prophetic about his own death, just as he had been about so many things in life,” Garbarino wrote in the book. “He was gone, but will not be forgotten because he left his mark not just on the game of football, but on history as well.”
