Lafayette Journal & Courier

Now and Then: Carson Cunningham

Just call him professor

By JEFF WASHBURN

June 4, 2007

Now that he has completed a Ph.D. and is a DePaul University history professor, former Purdue basketball standout Carson Cunningham frequently is asked if he should be called Dr. Cunningham.

"I tell them, 'A doctor helps you get physically healthy. If I was doing heart surgery, you could call me doctor,' " Cunningham said. "My students call me professor, but I'm not too much into titles."

Title the former Boilermaker point guard the most scholastically gifted Purdue men's basketball player since Dr. Terry Dischinger (1962) and Dr. Tim Fisher (1987), who do treat patients.

Cunningham, whose Ph.D. thesis centered on the history of American Olympic basketball, never met a course he didn't attack with passion and effort.

Randy Roberts, the Purdue history professor and Cunningham's Ph.D. mentor, isn't surprised his pupil is thriving as an instructor.

"He is back at the center of people's attention, which certainly is what a teacher is," Roberts said. "He loves to work with kids and students. He is a very giving person. I can't think of another graduate student I would rather see in the classroom."

After several seasons in the Continental Basketball Association, one in Estonia and one in Australia, Cunningham is basking in higher education.

"Playing overseas is fun when you are a young adult, not married and don't have a mortgage," Cunningham said. "I'm glad I did it, because you learn a lot and you don't have that many responsibilities.

"You can just wing it and see what happens. I got to live in Australia and in Estonia. And the CBA is an absolutely wild place. It's like a dimension all unto itself. It was great basketball. I also got to see a lot of places I might never go, like Fargo."

While he misses basketball, Cunningham now is the DePaul history department's point guard.

"I absolutely love teaching," Cunningham said. "I feel quite fortunate. I really don't feel like I'm going to work. It's like a hobby turned into work.

"I know that is rare. I'm grateful. There's times when I have to grade maybe a little more than I want, but I do absolutely love it. The technology today makes the classroom so much more dynamic. It's a golden age for students and teachers."

Cunningham, according to Roberts, was well prepared for a Ph.D. program thanks to playing for Gene Keady.

"I've never had anyone like him," Roberts said. "He carried what he had done in basketball into the classroom. When he would have an assignment that was due, he was always, 'I can get it done. I will get it done right away.'

"With graduate students, sometimes you get people who will procrastinate. But Carson had been through the Gene Keady camp. There was nothing I was going to say that would ruffle Carson's feathers. Carson always was looking for an edge in the classroom."