Charles "Cy" Sherman

Charles Sumner "Cy" Sherman (March 10, 1871 – May 22, 1951) was an American journalist and is known as the "father of the Cornhuskers" after giving the Nebraska Cornhuskers football team the name "Cornhuskers" in 1899. At his suggestion in 1936, Associated Press (AP) sports editor Alan J. Gould created the first AP Poll for ranking college football teams. Sherman began his career writing at the Nebraska State Journal in Lincoln, spent a short time at the Red Lodge, Montana Pickett before returning to Lincoln and the Lincoln Star where he spent most of his career. At his death he was called by the Star the "Dean of American Sportswriters".

Charles Sumner Sherman was born in Villisca, Iowa on March 10, 1871 to Charles Wheelan Sherman and Orilla (Groom) Sherman. His father was a civil war veteran and newspaper publisher and editor. He was born in Richland County, Ohio on June 6, 1841, and died in Los Angeles, California in January 1921. His mother was born in Marion County, Iowa on August 26, 1842, and died in Plattsmouth, Nebraska on May 31, 1900. Sherman first attended schools in Glenwood, Iowa, before his family moved to Plattsmouth, where he attended Plattsmouth High School. In Plattsmouth, his father was the publisher of the Plattsmouth Tribune, and Sherman spent time in its shop in where he learned printing. Sherman married Nancy Ada Moore in Davenport, Iowa on August 16, 1893. Nancy was born in Davenport on October 31, 1870.

During the 1890 through 1899 seasons, the Huskers had been called multiple names including Treeplanters, Rattlesnake Boys, Antelopes, Old Gold Knights and Bugeaters. The school was changing its school colors to scarlet and cream in 1892 and the Old Gold Knights no longer made sense. By 1892, the team's most commonly used nickname was the Bugeaters, possibly named after the insect-devouring bull bats or possibly as a teasing reference to the only food an East Coast reporter believed was left for residents to eat after an 1870s drought. Sherman attended a Thanksgiving 1893 game between Nebraska and the University of Iowa and when he saw the team called the "Bug Eaters" in the papers after the game, he decided the team should have a better name. Sherman thought the name Bugeaters was unglamorous and was tired of referring to the Nebraska teams with that name.

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