After Football
Gilchrist had numerous feuds with the people he worked with during his football career. He refused entry into the Canadian Football Hall of Fame on account that he did not believe he was paid well enough for his service. He also refused to accept enshrinement on the Buffalo Bills Wall of Fame because he wanted payment for appearing; Van Miller eventually convinced Gilchrist to change his mind, but Gilchrist was not inducted prior to his death. Gilchrist was posthumously inducted into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame in 2011.
In an article in The Buffalo News on March 18, 2007, Gilchrist, then 71, announced that he was being treated for throat cancer. At the time, he lived in Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania.
On January 10, 2011, Gilchrist died at an assisted living facility in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was posthumously diagnosed with stage four chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which may explain, in part, some of his behavioural difficulties. Gilchrist was aware of the possibility that he had the disease when writing his autobiography, The Cookie That Did Not Crumble, along with Chris Garbarino.
Read more about this topic: Cookie Gilchrist
Famous quotes containing the word football:
“You can’t be a Real Country unless you have A BEER and an airline—it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.”
—Frank Zappa (1940–1993)
“Idon’t enjoy getting knocked about on a football field for other people’s amusement. I enjoy it if I’m being paid a lot for it.”
—David Storey (b. 1933)