Legendary Alabama Sportswriter Rubin Grant Honored With 49 Other Icons

Solomon Crenshaw Jr.

For The Birmingham Instances

Rubin Grant vividly remembers the recommendation he obtained from his metropolis editor throughout his information writing internship at Montgomery’s Alabama Journal newspaper in the summertime of 1978.

Grant had stated he wished to pursue a profession as a sportswriter and his metropolis editor thought he was loopy.

“I requested her why and she or he stated, ‘As a result of you’ve a extremely vivid future in information writing,’” he recalled.

However Grant was assigned to cowl conferences of the Montgomery County Fee and the aspiring journalist was lower than enthused.

“I used to be bored out of my thoughts, going to conferences and stuff,” he recalled. “I stated I wished to be the place the motion is, so to talk, so I’ll simply stick with sports activities.”

Forty-four years later, few who know Grant doubt that he may certainly have been a excellent news reporter. However followers of his sports activities writing will give a ringing endorsement that he made the proper transfer.

And a few will say he has proven himself worthy of his different calling, as a licensed Baptist minister.

Writing Legend

The 64-year-old Montgomery native who labored 1 / 4 century for the Birmingham Publish-Herald, which printed its remaining version on September 23, 2005, was tabbed in March of this 12 months as one of many 50 sports activities writing legends as chosen by the Alabama Sports activities Writers Affiliation (ASWA).

On Sunday, the ASWA honored Grant together with its different legends on the group’s fiftieth conference in Birmingham.

Grant is one among simply two journalists on that checklist not a white male.  Kathy Jo Lumpkin, the daughter of fellow 50 Legends honoree Invoice Lumpkin, is the opposite.

Ginny MacDonald, Grant’s metropolis editor when he interned on the Alabama Journal, laughed when reminded of her sage recommendation. She wouldn’t change her recommendation, however is pleased with the profession Grant has crafted.

“I don’t learn a variety of that (sports activities) however I’m so happy after I see his identify on a sports activities story as a result of I do know it’s going to be properly executed,” she stated, “just because, like I stated in 1978, he’s a particularly good author. And he’s a extremely pleasant human being.”

The legend standing bestowed by ASWA is simply the most recent accolade for doled out to Grant, who in 1981 was inducted into the Birmingham Barons Corridor of Fame after 25 years of overlaying the group. That very same 12 months, he and Paul Finebaum obtained the ASWA’s Herby Kirby Award for the highest sports activities story, the recruitment of high basketball prospect Bobby Lee Harm from Huntsville’s Butler Excessive Faculty.

Grant was the Alabama Sports activities Corridor of Fame’s 2021 Mel Allen Media Award recipient for his profession as a sports activities author. Coincidentally, he writes the bios of every 12 months’s inductees to the Alabama Sports activities Corridor of Fame (ASHOF).

The Mel Allen Award brings a little bit of irony as it’s named for the Birmingham native who was inducted into the ASHOF in 1974 after being referred to as the “Voice of the New York Yankees” for 20 years. Grant considered taking an analogous path.

“I thought of broadcasting extra so than print journalism as a result of anybody who watches a sport with me will let you know that’s the place I’m finest at,” he stated. “I see issues, even simply watching the tv earlier than the commentators even touch upon it.”

Reoriented

However the would-be broadcaster was reoriented as a freshman on the College of Alabama in the summertime of 1975. He was requested if he wished to pursue broadcast journalism or print and he responded print, as a result of he was acquainted with that because the sports activities editor of his highschool yearbook.

“Alabama didn’t prepare me to be a sports activities author. They skilled me to be a journalist,” Grant stated. “They shaped an investigative reporting group for the Crimson White (scholar newspaper) and I used to be on that group. I used to be really named political editor for my junior 12 months.”

The scholar journalist stated he acquired bored with clashing with The Machine – “the Greek system at UA that guidelines scholar politics on campus and has a stronghold on politics within the state after college students graduate.” He resigned from being political editor with the Crimson White and approached the sports activities editor about writing for him throughout Grant’s junior 12 months.

As a senior, Grant was named sports activities editor, changing into the primary Black particular person to carry that place within the 1978-79 college 12 months.

Since 2004, he has labored as a contract journalist and now serves as sports activities editor of the Over The Mountain Journal. He additionally co-authored “Tales from Alabama Prep Soccer” with Ron Ingram, the previous prep sports activities editor for The Birmingham Information and one other of the ASWA 50 sports activities writing legends.

“We spent a few 12 months placing it collectively,” Ingram stated of the e-book. “It was a variety of enjoyable placing it collectively and it was only a actual nice alternative.”

Regardless of working for rival newspapers, Ingram stated he and Grant had been by no means rivals. They’re nice associates, even to at the present time, who share a love for highschool sports activities.

“That simply gave the impression to be the factor that I actually related with and loved, and Rubin was the identical manner,” stated Ingram, now the director of communications for the Alabama Excessive Faculty Athletic Affiliation. “However Rubin might write about something. Each Monday, I get a devotional from him that he sends to me that’s nearly like a sermonette. It’s well-researched and documented and it truly is an uplifting message for the week. It sort of helps me get going.”

Deeper Calling

These weekly writings – Do You Know What Time It’s?, or DYK for brief – give a peek into Grant’s deeper calling. Past delivering sports activities or information, he delivers the excellent news of the Gospel as a licensed Baptist minister.

Grant was raised in St. James Baptist Church No. 2 in Montgomery. He stated his “deep dive” into faith got here after watching the film, The Ten Commandments.

“Cecil B. DeMille’s Ten Commandments with Charlton Heston,” he stated in a booming, majestic tone. However Grant wasn’t content material simply to look at. Even then, he was reality checking.

“I picked up a Bible,” he stated. “I wished to see if this was an correct depiction. I knew nothing about poetic license and all of that and the trumped-up romance between Moses and Nefertiti. I began looking out the Scriptures to see whether or not the Ten Commandments lined up with what the Bible stated.”

There have been folks at his church who stated, “You’re gonna be a preacher.” He too had that inkling, as did his spouse, Wardinia.

“I sort of knew that myself, knew about this calling,” he recalled. “After we acquired married, Dina prayed — She knew it too – that the Lord would simply give us one 12 months collectively earlier than I went into the ministry.”

Grant preached his trial sermon in September 1981 at Mount Zion Baptist Church in Birmingham’s Riley Neighborhood, and have become a licensed Baptist minister below the Nationwide Baptist Affiliation that 12 months.

The couple celebrated 42 years of marriage on Might 3. They’ve a daughter Krystal Folkestad, her husband Evan and a grandson, 3-year-old Cyrus Stefan Folkestad.

Grant stated he’s a three-time graduate of Montgomery’s George Washington Carver Excessive Faculty, having accomplished elementary, junior excessive and senior highschool there. He was an outfielder on the Carver baseball group and wished to be the subsequent Willie Mays.

“That’s how I grew to become a (Main League Baseball San Francisco) Giants fan,” he stated. “However clearly I didn’t have the power to transcend highschool.”

However baseball was not his first sports activities love. That was the NFL.

“I used to be a Baltimore Colts fan, a diehard Baltimore Colts fan,” Grant stated. “My mother used to let me go away church and are available dwelling to look at the NFL sport that began at midday. I in all probability could be useless now if we had the supply to look at all of the stuff (we do) now. I can hear her saying, ‘You’re not going to sit down up on this home and watch TV all day, or watch soccer all day. You’re gonna should do another stuff.’

“If I had protested then, properly let’s simply say I wouldn’t be sitting right here now,” he laughed.