Kansas State University Athletics
K-State Athletics Hall of Fame
- Induction:
- 1995
- Class:
- 1931
It’s a classic story in sports: The superstar that almost wasn’t. For Henry Cronkite, it’s not that he would not have been a superstar: his enormous six-foot-five, 200 pound frame and incredible athletic abilities virtually guaranteed his success. It’s that Cronkite would not have been a super-star for the Wildcats, then still the Kansas State Aggies. After finishing high school, Cronkite had decided to attend college at Kansas University. It was after a visit with Kansas State head football coach A.N. McMillen and after several discussions with friends that Cronkite decided to bring his incredible talents to Kansas State.
Cronkite soon became a three-sport star at Kansas State, dominating on the gridiron as the football squad’s starting tackle, on the basketball court, and as a member of the track squads.
With all of his talents, Cronkite gained the majority of his accolades on the football field. Cronkite’s rise to greatness began during his junior season, ironically during a 14-0 loss to Kansas. Only Cronkite and teammate Jim Yeager played the entire game for the Aggies, and after the contest Cronkite was widely acclaimed for his staunch defensive efforts on the field.
Two more losses followed the defeat to Kansas before McMillen’s Aggies reeled off a string of three straight victories. That winning streak set up a matchup on a late fall afternoon in 1930 against the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Cronkite started at tackle in that game, and turned in an all-world performance in Kansas State’s first-ever victory over Nebraska’s football eleven.
In that historic 10-9 triumph, Cronkite intercepted a pass and scored K-State’s only touchdown on a 30-yard pass from fellow Kansas State Sports Hall of Famer Eldon Auker.
After that victory in the season finale, Cronkite was named captain of the K-State football squad for the upcoming 1931 season at the tender age of 19. He was the youngest man ever named team captain.
Cronkite’s 1931 Aggies are to this day regarded as one of the best teams to ever take the field at Kansas State. That squad bolted out to a 5-0 record behind Cronkite and Auker’s explosive offense and a stifling defense that would shut out four opponents and allow less than four points per contest. K-State’s only two losses during the 1931 campaign came by one point to Iowa State, and three points to Nebraska, a 6-3 setback in which Cronkite inevitably scored the Aggies’ only trio of points on a field goal.
Cronkite’s performances during the 1931 campaign became storied both in Kansas and throughout the nation. On November 26, 1931, the Aggies shut out Washburn 22-0. Two days later, accolades for Cronkite began to pour in from all over the nation. On November 28, Cronkite was named to the AP’s first-team All Big Six Squad, and two days after that he was named All-American by the New York Sun and New York World Telegram. Cronkite was  the second player in school history to be named first team All-American. For the rest of that fall, nearly every publication in the nation naming All-American teams included Henry Cronkite.
After spending a year in the National Football League with the Chicago Cardinals, Cronkite returned to Kansas to coach high school football in Abilene. He coached there until his death in 1949.
