Friends, fans remember UC and Bengals quarterback Greg Cook

CINCINNATI - Cincinnati football legend Greg Cook is dead at the age of 65, leaving friends and fans to talk about the sadness of what might have been.

In 1969, Greg Cook had it all. Movie-star handsome, the Bengals quarterback was named Rookie of the Year by AP and UPI.

But in game 3 against Kansas City, he suffered an injury that would eventually cut short a promising career.

UC radio announcer Jim Kelly's father coached Cook.  Kelly says Cook "was hit from the side, sacked, and fell on his throwing arm. Today that would be easily corrected. He would have been back on the field the next year. But he was never able to recover from it."

Lou Cynkar played at UC with Cook. Cynkar told me, "Had he not been hurt, a lot of us at UC, we honestly felt  the Cincinnati Bengals would have been the San Francisco 49ers."

Cynkar had been a high school quarterback, but when he got to UC and saw Cook throw, he decided he'd better switch to another position. Cynkar says as talented as Greg was, he worked hard.

"We'd be on a road trip, and he'd  spend a lot of time on the playbook,while the rest of us were playing poker."

I asked, "What happened to Greg Cook?"

"He missed football. He tried to come back, and you have to give the Browns credit. Four years after the injury, he kept coming back to camp.  But when he  found out he couldn't play football, it was devastating to Greg."

Greg Cook was a talented artist, and his Bengals colleague Bob Johnson called him a free spirit. But friends say the final years of his life were troubled by drinking.

Jim Kelly says, "Greg had at times a rough life. I would run into him at times at Busken's getting a cup of coffee, and we would talk. Other times he would disappear and nobody could find him"

Still Kelly remembers a man with an aura of confidence. And fans will long remember Greg Cook, not only for what might have been, but for what he gave on the football field.

Kelly recalls the UC-Miami game in 1968 as one of the greatest games he's ever seen. He says "Greg Cook put the team on his back and won that football game."

Lou Cynkar says, "Greg WAS the University of Cincinnati for a lot of us. That's an era, when you talk about UC football,  you talk about Greg Cook and the years he was there."