Longtime Alabama sports writer Rubin Grant remembered as ‘top-notch’ professional, just a ‘great person’

Rubin Grant, who combined a legendary Alabama sports writing career with a passion for encouraging others and spreading the Gospel, died Wednesday.

The longtime high school writer for the Birmingham Post-Herald was honored in 2022 as one of the 50 legends of sports writing in the state by the Alabama Sports Writers Association. He was 67.

“Rubin Grant was the best,” longtime friend Solomon Crenshaw Jr. said. “As a person, he was the highest standard individual in terms of not just being known but knowing how to carry himself. There was no one he didn’t get along with. No one with whom he couldn’t identify. Professionally, top notch doesn’t seem like a high enough bar. He absolutely loved his coverage of high schools and took it so seriously whether he was working for the Post-Herald, the Over the Mountain Journal or anyone else.”

Grant was a graduate of Carver-Montgomery and the University of Alabama. In 1978-1979, he worked as the first Black sports editor of the Crimson White student newspaper. He then spent 25 years at the Post-Herald, working with writers like Bill Lumpkin, Ray Melick and Paul Finebaum. In addition to covering high school sports, Grant also covered the Birmingham Barons for a quarter of a century and was inducted into their Hall of Fame in 2008.

“I remember him covering Charles Barkley in basketball,” Melick said. “And, of course, he covered Michael Jordan that summer in baseball with the Barons. Rubin really had a broad depth of things that he covered, but at his core he was just a great person. He loved his family, loved his friends, encouraged people, stayed in touch with people. He meant a lot to an awful lot of people even outside of sports.”

Longtime Birmingham Barons general manager Jonathan Nelson said he was “heartbroken” over Grant’s death.

“I certainly knew Rubin and his family through all of those years and thought the world of him,” he said. “Not only was he a great personality, but he brightened up the whole room. Whether covering the Barons when we won the championship in 1993 or the (Michael) Jordan year or the years after, Rubin was always a great person who had a contagious laugh, and it was always fun to show up at the ballpark and work with him.”

Nelson said Grant would always be remembered by the Barons because of his contributions to the minor league baseball organization.

“It was an honor to call him a friend,” he said.

Grant – along with Finebaum and Lumpkin – combined to win the ASWA’s Herby Kirby Award in 1981 for their coverage of the recruitment of Huntsville basketball standout Bobby Lee Hurt. The Herby Kirby Award is given annually to the year’s best overall sports story.

“It was truly one of the highlights of my life to share that award with Rubin and Bill Lumpkin,” Finebaum said. “It was the biggest story of my career, and we are forever linked to it. We spent a lot of time together on that story and other stories, and Rubin became an incredibly close friend and someone I cherished as a friend.”

Since 2004, Grant has worked as a freelance journalist and also as sports editor for The Over the Mountain Journal. He also co-authored the book “Tales from Alabama Prep Football” with former Birmingham News high school writer Ron Ingram.

“Rubin and I worked at rival newspapers in Birmingham for many years but from day one we struck up a professional friendship that led to a treasured bond in our professional and personal lives,” Ingram said. “He was a rock for me when I needed it, and he was a true professional at his craft. He was a journalist of high standards who happened to write about sports. He saw the human side of sports and the lessons those games could teach to our young people, and he told those lessons well. That was his profession. However, it was his life of caring for others that stands out to me on this sad day for his friends and family.”

In 2021, Grant was honored by the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame with the Mel Allen Media Award, which honors media members in the state who have made a lifetime contribution to sports through their work.

“Rubin was kind to everyone,” said Scott Myers, executive director of the ASHOF. “He loved Jesus and was just a wonderful person to be around. He was a mainstay in the sports writing world in Birmingham for so many years. He will surely be missed. It’s a huge loss for the sports world in Alabama, and everyone who knew him.”

Grant also was a licensed Baptist minister and frequently sent carefully written devotionals to friends and others entitled, “Do you know what time it is?” Finebaum said one of the most moving experiences of his life came when he attended the funeral of Rubin’s mom.

“Rubin gave the eulogy,” he said. “I didn’t know that part of him, the preacher side. He gave a eulogy that was electrifying. From that moment, I started thinking, ‘Rubin has a higher calling than being a sports writer.’ That was an eye-opening experience. I knew he was a man of great faith but to see it displayed in a pulpit in a church of Montgomery, Ala., was quite revealing. That is who he was. Sports writing was a hobby for him. Preaching and helping people and ministering to people was his calling. Having said all that, he was a great sports writer, too.”

Ingram said Grant was a true legend.

“He taught all of us how to be better individuals,” he said. “His faith and family are what mattered most to him.”

Arrangements have not been finalized yet.

Sports writer Dennis Victory contributed to this report.