Long story short, we figured out that the story her mom read about was Brian’s Song, a movie based on Gale Sayers’ autobiography I Am Third which includes his relationship wtih his teammate, Brian Piccolo, who did get cancer but unfortunately didn’t survive it. Several years ago, she was curious to find out and asked her mom. But Gay never knew who this Irish guy was. “Galen” made sense because Gay’s full name is “Gay Lynn”, so her mom cleverly changed it to two words. We were wrong.Īll her life, Gay had believed that she was named after “an Irish guy named Galen who survived cancer” because her mom read about the guy and was inspired by the story of beating cancer. But he’s relevant to us because Gay was named after him! At least, that’s what we have believed for the last 15 years.
I knew of him as one of the first famous football players, the way baseball fans know of Babe Ruth. He was a great football player and I’m a football fan but he played before my time. Gale Sayers died today, sadly from dementia caused by football.
