Remembering Gene Cronin: From an Ione farm to McClatchy High to the 1957 NFL champion Lions
Gene Cronin could speak of long odds and perseverance because his parents endured difficult times that inspired him throughout his 90 years, including losing a family farm in Nebraska during the gripping Great Depression of the 1930s when people lost jobs, homes — everything but the clothes on their backs.
One of Sacramento’s greatest football players whose toughness and tenacity landed him in the 1950s NFL, Cronin grew up in Ione in Amador County after the family relocated to California. He milked 30 cows a day in his youth and grew into quite the athlete, starring as a lineman in the trenches at McClatchy High School, the University of Pacific in Stockton and then starting at defensive end for the greatest Detroit Lions team of them all, the 1957 NFL championship squad.
Cronin died last month at 90 of natural causes in Sacramento, his lifelong best friend Gene Wiese told The Bee.
“Great man who meant so much to so many people, including me,” said Wiese, a lifelong Sacramento resident. “He was the best man in my wedding, my older son’s godfather. Gene slowed down in his final years but he never lost his spirit, never lost his sense of humor. Gene Cronin was a great competitor right up to the day he died. He never complained about anything, ever. What a great man.”
Born Nov. 20, 1933 in Spalding, Nebraska, Cronin appreciated the values of farming and hard work, but his passion was athletics. He made himself a good player by working out, lifting bales of hay before he ever discovered a weight room. He also made sure he had a role in his future.
Cronin in 1949 as a 15-year-old hitchhiked to Sacramento from the family farm in Ione in search of a larger high school in which to test his football skills. He asked people on the street what the biggest high school was in the city, and he wound up at McClatchy, where at 6-foot-2 and 220 pounds he was considered enormous in an era well before the 300-pound player became the norm.
Cronin for several weeks lived in the local YMCA, on Fifth and J Street, sacking out on a cot before his family relocated to Sacramento to back his ambition.
“I didn’t even know if I was good enough to play high school football,” Cronin said in a 1989 Sacramento Bee interview. “That’s why I came to Sacramento, to see if I was good enough to play football. Can you imagine thins? Here’s a young kid from Ione, going up and down K Street, asking people which high school in Sacramento had the best football team.”
Said Wiese: “Gene was very aggressive in football, a tremendous athlete, a great teammate, always pumping people up, always ready to go.”
Cronin received full academic scholarship offers from across the country to play the line after a dominating prep career. He was named in 2000 as one of The Bee’s Top 100 all-time high school players from Sacramento.
Cronin played one season at nearby Sacramento City College, landing in the Panthers Hall of Fame in 2001. He played offensive tackle and defensive tackle at UOP from 1952-55, earning program Hall of Fame honors in 1984.
Cronin was drafted in the seventh round of the 1956 NFL Draft by the Lions, where he played through the 1959 season.
Cronin spent a season with the expansion Dallas Cowboys in 1960 and the Washington Redskins in 1961 and ‘62. He played 87 NFL games as a 240-pounder, missing one game in seven NFL seasons.
Cronin’s football highlight, of course, was the 1957 Lions championship team. He remained close to teammates decades after their playing days. Members of that team met in Detroit in 2017 to share stories, and Cronin could tell stories. One of them was when Cronin owned a bar in Sacramento in the 1980s. One night, Cronin was serving a meal to a customer when he felt a pistol pressed to the back of his neck.
The robber left with a wad of cash, and Cronin never broke a sweat. He was known to be cool under pressure in football gear and when working the bar.
In this 2017 reunion, former Lions players spoke of their freewheeling quarterback Bobby Layne. He suffered a broken ankle against the Cleveland Browns one season, and Cronin visited him in the hospital.
“I go up to the room,” Cronin told the Detroit Free Press. “He’s still laying there. He’s got his football pants on. A Marlboro cigarette in his mouth. He’s got an ice pack on his ankle. He’s watching a game involving the 49ers. The doctor comes in. Layne tells him, ‘you get out of here! I told you not to bother me until this game was over!’”
Detroit on Dec. 28, 1957, trounced the Cleveland Browns 59-14 for the championship, the only one in franchise history. The Browns were coached by Hall of Famer Paul Brown and Hall of Fame running back Jim Brown.
In an earlier playoff game that season at Kezar Stadium against the San Francisco 49ers, the Lions trailed 24-7 at the half. Detroit players were irked to hear the 49ers celebrating down the hall.
“Coach George Wilson came in,” Cronin told The Bee decades later, “and said, ‘I’ve got nothing to say. Just listen to the 49ers.’”
Detroit rallied to win 31-27.
Cronin was first Atlanta Falcons hire
“I had a good career in the NFL,” Cronin once told The Bee. “I played against some greats — Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, Jim Taylor, Paul Hornung, Bobby MItchell, Elroy Hirsch, Y.A. Tittle. I can’t mention them all. I wouldn’t trade my career in pro football for anything. I loved it, the camaraderie, the players, the excitement. I’m fortunate, too. I came out of the game clean. I didn’t suffer any serious injuries.”
Cronin worked as the chief scout for the Lions after his playing career. He was the first hire for the newly formed Atlanta Falcons, in 1965, as director of player personnel, later promoted to assistant general manager. At 32, he conducted the team’s first draft.
Cronin spent decades in the restaurant and bar business, including in Sacramento at the Maple Room on Arden Way, where people flocked to him to soak in his good cheer. He was married twice, the second in 1986 to Angie, a former Miss Sacramento.
“Angie’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” Cronin told The Bee in 1998. “I’ve never been happier.”
Cronin added in the same interview of his career and life: “I was fortunate to be a kid from the small town of Ione who made it to the big leagues of the NFL. Now I want to grow old and happy.”
There will be no memorial services.