A Brief History On February 13, 1919, American football legend Eddie Robinson was born in Jackson, Louisiana. Digging Deeper Eddie was born into a working family and earned his BA in English from Leland College at Baker, Louisiana while playing quarterback on their football team. He later earned his MA at the University of Iowa in 1954. In the meantime, Eddie compiled an incredible record as the football coach at Grambling State University in Louisiana, from 1941 to 1997, amassing a record of 408 wins, 165 losses, and 15 ties. Robinson retired in 1997 and died at the age of…
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A Brief History On February 11, 1990, Iron Mike Tyson went into his match against James “Buster” Douglas as a 42 to 1 favorite. Not only did Tyson, undefeated and undisputed as the Heavyweight Champion at the time, lose the fight, he was knocked out in the 10th round! Digging Deeper While Douglas’s surprise victory is largely considered the biggest upset in boxing history at any weight class, some of the other major heavyweight upsets include: James “The Cinderella Man” Braddock over Max Baer, 1935 Max Schmeling’s knockout of Joe Louis in 1936 Muhammad Ali’s knockout of Sonny Liston in…
A Brief History On February 1, 1901, Clark Gable was born in Cadiz, Ohio, and would go on to movie greatness earning the nickname, “The King of Hollywood.” Despite winning 2 Best Actor Academy Awards and being nominated for another pair, Gable was listed as only the 6th greatest American-born male movie star by the American Film Institute in 1999. Digging Deeper The stars listed ahead of Gable are: Humphrey Bogart, with 1 Academy Award and 3 nominations. James Stewart, with 1 Academy Award and 5 nominations. Marlon Brando, with 2 Academy Awards and 8 nominations. Fred Astaire, with 1…
A Brief History On January 24, 2023, the nominations for the Academy Awards, better known as the “Oscars,” have been released! The big day of the awards ceremony will be March 12, 2023, and will honor those films released in 2022. Digging Deeper Some of our favorite major nominees include: All Quiet on the Western Front for Best Picture, Austin Butler in the title role of Elvis for Best Actor, and Michelle Yeoh for Best Actress in the frenetic Everything Everywhere All at Once. You can see trailers for each of these films below. Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What…
A Brief History On January 20, 1947, only 3 months before Jackie Robinson broke the “color barrier” and became the first African American major league baseball player, the famous catcher and slugger from the Negro Leagues of baseball, Josh Gibson, died at the young age of 35 of a stroke brought on by a brain tumor. Digging Deeper Gibson is now recognized by Major League Baseball as having had the highest single season batting average of all time, .466 in 1943. As of 2020, MLB recognizes Negro League statistics as belonging in “major league” category. Gibson also slugged about 800…