A native of Aurora, Illinois,[3] Gillette attended the University of Wisconsin where he played halfback and quarterback for the Badgers football team.

While at Wisconsin, Gillette also played varsity baseball and "was a ten and two-fifths man" on the track team.

In the fourth quarter of a close game, newspaper accounts report that "Gillette, in two magnificent runs, took the ball over for the second touchdown for Wisconsin.

"[6] One newspaper wrote that Gillette's "run of 70 yards through a broken field [in the 1910 Chicago game] was one of the best ever seen on Camp Randall.

"[7] At the end of the 1911 football season, Gillette became embroiled in an eligibility dispute involving charges by Coach Henry L. Williams of the University of Minnesota.

Minnesota charged that several Wisconsin players, including Gillette, had played professional baseball during the summer.

"[11]At the end of the 1912 season, Gillette was selected as a first-team All-American quarterback by syndicated sports writer Tommy Clark and Alfred S. Harvey of the Milwaukee Free Press.

When Gillette was completely omitted from the All-American teams selected by Eastern football expert Walter Camp (whose omission of Western players was an ongoing subject of controversy), Wisconsin supporters "sneered at the idea that Camp had found three better quarterbacks than Wisconsin's brilliant Eddie Gillette.