Football Fever: Kannapolis’ long love affair with Wonders football
Dane Laney is a lifelong Kannapolis resident and executive producer of the Kannapolis Wonders Football Show. Every Friday night, during football season, Laney and his crew broadcasts live from Memorial Stadium at A.L. Brown High School. The stadium, built in 1958, has seen some of the best matches in state high school sports history. And it hosts every other year the oldest and, arguably, the greatest high school rivalry in the state: The Battle for the Bell game between Kannapolis and Concord. Laney has seen many of these games. And he said football has gotten Kannapolis through tough times before.
Tell me about your work with the radio station.
In 1996, WRKB 1460 AM, out of China Grove, about this time, Carl Ford bought the radio station and Wonder football went off the air for a couple of years. I remember in my neighborhood, we would call each other and ask, ‘Is the game on?’ There is such a tremendous following of Wonder football in this area. But I thought I have to find out what we need to do about this. So I took it upon myself to ask Carl Ford what we could do to get Wonder football back on the air. Carl said if you get enough businesses and enough money to support this thing, I’ll put it back on the air and announce it for you. The summer of 1996, I got 12 business that was willing to support Wonder football and put in $200 a piece. We did that and we got it running and back on the air and it’s been broadcasting ever since.
Where did the nickname “Wonders” come from?
There are a couple of stories that go with that. The one I’ve heard, back in the 1920s, when our colors were black and blue, that we were losing so much. But we finally won a game, and when the team got back to J.W Cannon High School, they said, “It’s a wonder we won that game!” The other story is that the bus broke down going to a football game and, when they finally got it cranked up and going and got to the neighboring town, they said, “It’s a wonder you even got here for the game.” From that, it was the Wonders. Later on, we changed our colors to green and white, because our colors were too much like Concord’s — which are black and gold.
Why is Kannapolis football so big?
It’s always been big. We were starving for a winning product. In 1975, Dr. (Grier) Bradshaw said we’re going to go out, spare no expense, get a football coach and we’re going to win. At that time, Coach Bob Boswell was an assistant at N.C. State. He gathered the best minds of high school football and put together in the mid-1970s. But Concord is our biggest obstacle. It’s like Ohio State and Michigan. And they have a great program going on over there.
When the mill closed in 2003, it was devastating. People were out of jobs. Was football a way to distract and come together as a community?
We’ve got two sports in Kannapolis — NASCAR and Wonders football on Friday night. At a time, earlier on in the 1960s, when there was a lot of social tension, it was a way for Kannapolis to come together on Friday night and we avoided a lot of what other cities had because of Wonder football.
There was always a black and white issue, but there was not the same black and white issue that other cities in this area, in this state and nation, had. We all worked for Cannon Mills and all had the same jobs. Everyone had a common bond and Wonder football was a way to cement that.
When Dale Earnhardt started winning big, the community rallied behind him. It’s the type of community that we are. We lost a lot, but at least a little bit, on Friday night, we could put that behind us and watch the Wonders play. Our situation is different from any other community around here. It helped a lot because we lost a lot. It was like losing a strong uncle or somebody in your family that was rock solid. But we rallied around that.
Why is the Battle for the Bell game one of the biggest rivalries in the state? It seems that it mirrors the rivalry between the two cities.
Yeah, Kannapolis and Concord has always been competitive. Although Concord was the county seat, but Plant No. 1 was in Kannapolis. The economic part of Cabarrus County was in Kannapolis. They had the mixture of people coming from Concord to work in Kannapolis. The rivarly was always very fierce. When I was playing, if we took the loss at Concord, we had to live with it all winter and it never got better. It was a blood feud.
When the bell was introduced in the 1950s, that gave us something that no other high school had. We have so many high schools popping up now and they are all good schools, but Concord and Kannapolis, we were here first. And deep down inside, the others are looking at us with a little envy. Every year, more than 10,000 people come to this thing and it’s still bragging rights for a year. Now, it’s a generational thing — where sons are playing, where 20 years their daddy played in the game, and 20 years ago, their daddy played in the game. It’s always been a hard-fought game — an electricity in the air that you don’t get in any other game. But as long as Concord puts on the black and gold and we wear our green and white, I think this rivalry will stand the test of time.
Interview by Ben McNeely
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