Cruikshank was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1890 and attended the Blair Academy, a private boarding school in rural Warren County, New Jersey.
During the time that Cruikshank attended Washington & Jefferson, the football team was among the elite programs in the United States.
The 1913 team played Yale to a scoreless tie, defeated Grove City College by a score of 100–0, and broke the Penn State Nittany Lions' 19-game winning streak with a 17–0 victory.
Sportswriter Walter S. Trumbull of The New York Sun suggested that the Michigan Aggies, Washington & Jefferson, Chicago University, and Notre Dame were the new "Big 4 of College Football" instead of the traditional grouping of Princeton, Yale, Harvard, and Penn.
[3] If not for an errant kick that hit the crossbar, W&J would have won the Harvard game and at least a share of the mythical national championship.
At the time of his graduation from the college in 1915, a newspaper story noted that he was among the top students in his class:"Captain Burleigh Cruikshank, of W. & J.
[8] In December 1915, he was rumored to be the successor to Bob Folwell as the head football coach at Washington & Jefferson.
He was one of the most popular students that ever attended W. & J. and his great work on the gridiron won him the honor of All-American center on many of the mythical elevens of 1914.
"[7]After graduating from the Princeton Seminary, Cruikshank began his ministry as the pastor of a small church in Chatham, New Jersey.
In 1921, Cruikshank was hired as the pastor of the Westminster Presbyterian Church in Steubenville, Ohio, approximately 40 miles west of Pittsburgh.