BILL CROSS - INDUCTEE #22
hall of fame fast fact:
Little All-America football player Bill Cross started his West Texas career on a basketball scholarship. "Neither the basketball or football coach wanted to give a scholarship to somebody my size," he said. Football coach Frank Kimbrough talked cage coach Gus Miller into giving Cross a scholarship, and the Canadian athlete played both sports as a freshman. His grid exploits took off, however, and football it was.
Bill Cross
Bill Cross: former Canadian Wildcat, West Texas State Buffalo, and Chicago Cardinal running back.
Cross excelled in track and went to state for Canadian in the high jump and the broad jump, with a best of 22 feet in the latter. In high jump, he leaped 6-2, six inches more than his height.
As a senior on WT’s exceptional 10-1 football team in 1950, Cross – only 145 pounds and “just a freckle over 5-5” in height – ran for 1,197 yards for an average of 9.2 yards a carry. From 1947 to 1950, he became the Buffs’ all-time leading rusher with 2,474 steps until Mercury Morris broke his record in 1968.
After WT played in the Sun Bowl, Cross played three productive years with the NFL’s Chicago Cardinals and a year with the Toronto Argonauts of the CFL before quitting to return to the Panhandle.
He was co-owner of Buck’s Sporting Goods and coached a year at Texas Western. Cross taught at Canadian for two decades before retiring.
Bill Cross died in 2013.
