The president of his senior class, Rick Cannon led Wendell Willkie High School to a 19-2 record and a conference title in 1965, but opted to go east instead of playing basketball closer to home. In doing so, Cannon became Georgetown's first recruit from the state of Indiana in 20 years.

Cannon was a able scorer and rebounder who, despite being just 6-4 was called upon at both ends of the floor. Following a successful run on the freshman team alongside teammate Jim Supple, Cannon averaged 8.3 points per game as a sophomore, including a run of five consecutive games in double figures and a career high 21 against Fordham. Cannon led the Hoyas in scoring in three games as a junior and led the team in rebounds in four. As in 1967, he finished fifth in scoring and forth in rebounding on the team.

An English major, Cannon focused on his studies his senior year in lieu of a third season, and following his bachelor's degree from Georgetown and a master's degree from the University of Iowa, returned to Washington to teach English at Gonzaga College High School, where he has been a popular and respected teacher for four decades.

"His first handout to new students is titled 'Write To Express, Not To Impress'", wrote a Washington Post feature in 2012. "It says: 'A great many people do write just to impress. And because of that they write badly. They use language as a weapon. Big, multi-syllabic, Latinate words are thrown around like brickbats in the professional world. They are meant to impress, to intimidate, to demonstrate vocabulary, to justify salary by making the simple seem complex and the complex, impossible.'"

The school paid tribute to him in a 2016 online post by noting that "Countless Gonzaga students have become gifted writers thanks to his dedication, his patience, his wisdom and his love of teaching and of Gonzaga."