It’s
not everyday that I can blog about possible history this Black History month,
sports and cinema in the same entry.
Mahershala
Gilmore played basketball at Saint Mary’s from 1992 to 1996. The head coach was
Ernie Kent, who is now the current head coach at Washington State. Ron
Benevides, one of his assistant coaches at the time said, “…His personality was
great…He was one of those guys who would do what you asked him to do.” Added
teammate now comedian Reggie Steele, “…no matter what play you were running,
you could count on him to be where he was supposed to be when he was supposed
to be there.”
After
graduation, Gilmore went to New York University to earn his Master’s. Ten years
into his acting career, his changed his name Mahershala Ali. He has appeared in
movies that include The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Hunger Games and
Moonlight. I personally enjoyed his work for the first time as Cornell “Cottonmouth”
Stokes in the Netflix series Luke Cage.
The history
part? Ali won an Oscar in 2017 for Best Supporting Actor for his “Moonlight”
role. While he was the first Muslim to win the Oscar for acting, that’s not the
historic part. He is up for another Oscar in tomorrow’s Academy Awards ceremonies.
If he wins, he will be the 42nd actor/actress (and second African-American)
to win multiple acting Oscars. That’s juice…and history.
I also
have say Rest In Peace to two baseball pioneers. Don Newcombe, the former Negro
League pitcher, was the first pitcher to win the Rookie of the Year,
MVP and Cy Young awards during his career. In his eleven major league seasons, he
won 149 games and even batted .271, ninth best average in league history for
pitchers.
Frank
Robinson is still the only major league player who won the Most Valuable Player
award in both the American and National leagues. The 14 time All-Star also led
the Baltimore Orioles to two World Series titles. He will always hold a special
place in my sports heart because he was the first manager of my beloved
Nationals our first two years in D.C.
