(Huffington Post) — Jean Edmonson still remembers how Herman Cain came to the rescue of her quadriplegic husband and the inner-city youth center he founded in Omaha, Neb. It was the late 1980s and the then-CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and self-made multimillionaire brokered a deal with the YMCA of Greater Omaha to merge with the struggling Edmonson Youth Outreach Center so that its founder could get health insurance. Joe Edmonson was a beloved wrestling coach in the community who, despite being a quadriplegic, inspired a generation of underprivileged black youth. Cain had joined the board of the sports and after-school program in predominantly-black north Omaha after a young wrestler whose mother worked as a janitor at Godfather’s headquarters approached him to help sponsor a team trip to a national tournament. So when the local YMCA approached Cain, one of Omaha’s most prominent African American business leaders, for help to raise funds for a new neighborhood branch, he agreed. But only if the Y merged with the Edmonson Center.
