As the diminutive Danny Woodhead joins his New England
Patriot teammates on the field in Indianapolis
tomorrow to do battle against the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, I have a
sorry fact to report.
And I do so with full knowledge that in Nebraska, football is a religion, and I don’t
want my Galey and Cunningham in-laws to excommunicate me from the family and brand
me a “troublemaker” for divulging this fact.
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| A.V. Cunningham |
Grandpa Cunningham was anti-football.
Now I’m not talking about Grandpa R.R. Cunningham who many
family members today remember from their youth in Whitney. I mean his dad, A.V. Cunningham of Giltner, that highly
regarded farmer who served two terms in the Nebraska legislature, from 1903 to 1907,
representing his neighbors in Hamilton County.
Who knew?
Doing a little research on the Cunninghams yesterday while
visiting Salt Lake City, I came across a story –
not in the Omaha
or Lincoln newspapers – but from a 1903 issue of the New York Times that
revealed Grandpa Cunningham's dim view of football in colleges and high schools. Here’s
the text of the article:
LINCOLN, Neb.,
Jan. 10 – Representative A. V. Cunningham of Hamilton County
is credited with the authorship of a bill which will be introduced in the
Legislature the coming week to prohibit playing football at the public
educational institutions of the State.
“I am
unalterably opposed to football as part of the athletic amusement of students,”
said Mr. Cunningham. “I consider it more
brutal than prizefighting for the reason that in prizefighting only two men are
engaged; in the game of football twenty-two are called upon to risk their
lives.
“The
presence of a physician is not always required at a prizefight, but did you
ever hear of or see a game of football at which one or two physicians were not
in attendance?”
Other
members are in sympathy with the bill, but the game does not lack defenders
among the legislators.
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| Chance Galey (left) and his dad Gary Gene Galey in 2007 |
The good news is that Grandpa Cunningham’s bill failed and
never became law. And that was good news
for boys on the gridiron from Omaha
and Hastings all the way to Scottsluff and Chadron.
And I have a feeling that if A.V. had been around in the
early years of the 21st Century, he would have been in the front row
cheering for his great-great-great-grandson, Chance Galey. Chance was a three-year starting center for the Chadron State College "Eagles" and was selected to the 2008 Football Gazette All-America Team. After studying environmental science and graduating from CSC in 2008, he's gone to work in the oil and gas industry for Halliburton and lives in Greeley, Colorado.
Gosh, if Gpa Cunningham’s bill had passed, the Nebraska
Cornhuskers could never have built their football dynasty. And Chance Galey would have missed a fun
career on the field at Chadron
State.
