RIP Dick Gallagher, the patron saint of WNY high school sports.

Farewell to an unparalleled contributor to our community, the warmest of human beings, and a dear friend.

Obituary via Milt Northrop & @miggyrod33: https://buffalonews.com/2020/06/22/dick-gallagher-dies-at-79-was-high-school-football-devotee-and-fought-against-addiction-among-young-people/

Thread:

For the last 33 years, Dick Gallagher organized an awards banquet for Western New York high school football.

Tables full of plaques. Hundreds of players, coaches & family members from every corner of WNY filling every corner of Classics V on Niagara Falls Blvd. John Murphy, the booming voice of the Buffalo #Bills, heralding each award winner as if they were an NFL draft pick.

Gallagher conceived the event on his own, organized it by himself, and often put it on at his own expense. He followed up with coaches and athletic directors to make sure players knew about it. He handled last-minute ticket requests.

He wrote a script for Murphy, right down to every all-star's individual stats and even the GPAs of the all-academic honorees.

In his closing remarks, after putting such an immense effort into what would be a special, indelible experience for those who were a part of it, he always made sure to tell the audience:

"Thanks for the opportunity."

When a group of us, inspired by what Gallagher did for football each year, started a similar event for high school boys basketball ( @UnytsBCANYawrds), he helped us every step of the way.

He gave us to-do lists from his football banquet, bought an ad to support the event financially, and somehow took care of printing 200 programs.

When we thanked him for his help at the end of the night, he said, "thanks for the opportunity."

For decades, he helped @TheBuffaloNews select the All-Western New York football team. We'd iron out the team in one evening, but had already put hundreds of hours into compiling his lists.

He kept a running All-WNY team throughout the season, painstakingly moving players up or down from week to week.

When we parted ways, we would thank him profusely for his input. He would just smile and say: "Thanks for the opportunity.”

Gallagher was thanking us when we were trying to thank him. Those opportunities? He created them, and he made the very most of them.

Great communities don't truly become great communities without people like Dick Gallagher.

Many times people wonder aloud, "wouldn't it be nice if someone did this," or, "you know, someone should really do something like that."

But who takes the time and effort to do it?

Dick Gallagher did.

He selflessly devoted much of his life to rewarding, promoting and encouraging young people.

He did the same to those of us in the media.

If you showed up at a high school football game and you saw him on the sideline, wearing some kind of sports sweatshirt and some team’s ball cap, with tufts of his curly white hair sticking out of the back, you knew you had picked the right game to cover.

The only better feeling was when he greeted you – always with a huge smile and kind words about the work you’d been doing.

In addition to his football event, he would hold all-academic banquets each season. It might have been just one evening, but it was a night that showed students that what they were doing was worth celebrating, and worth feeling good about.

Each year at the football banquet, he would tell an impassioned, emotional story of how he had lost his daughter Christine, almost pleading with young people to make good decisions and to keep working hard, impressing upon them how precious life is.

He was Western New York's very own patron saint of high school sports. He was our very own Saint Dick.

Dick, on behalf of thousands of student-athletes, coaches, families & Western New York community members who you have impacted over the decades:

Thanks for the opportunity.