Captain and MVP of the football team in 1938, VanRanst was a Grantland Rice All-America honorable mention tackle in 1937 and an Associated Press All-East honorable mention in 1938. He was selected to the Eastern College All-Star squad that played the New York Giants in 1939, and to the North squad that played in the North-South All-Star game in Montgomery, Ala. As a shot putter in track, VanRanst placed third at the outdoor Heptagonals in 1938 and set the Cornell indoor record in that event in 1939. He was a member of the combined Cornell-Princeton track team that competed against Oxford and Cambridge in England his junior year.
