At its 100th anniversary celebration on Feb. 16, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul's Council of Los Angeles will be honoring two men for their work in the community - Los Angeles Dodgers broadcaster and former major leaguer Rick Monday and Academy Award winning actor Louis Gossett, Jr. Funds raised will go toward expanding the Council's summer camp for disadvantaged children.
Monday had a 19-season career, playing outfield for the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics (1966-71) and Chicago Cubs (1972-76) before finishing out his professional days with the Dodgers (1977-84). And he put up some impressive stats, batting .264 with 241 home runs and 775 RBIs. In 1968 and '78, the Arkansas-born and Santa Monica-raised lefty was selected to the All-Star team.
But Monday is perhaps best known for rescuing the American flag.
On April 25, 1976, he was playing centerfield for the Cubs against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium when a man and his son ran into the outfield with a U.S. flag and tried to set it on fire. Monday ran over, grabbed the flag off the ground and saved it.
Monday eased into broadcasting while he was still playing for the Dodgers. In 1979 he worked for KABC during the off season, learning the business by "shadowing" sports reporters and TV crews to see how they put together a story.
In 1989, he moved to San Diego to do play-by-play for the Padres on radio and television for four years. He joined the Dodgers broadcast team in 1993, where he's been a fixture ever since, doing both color analysis and play by play commentary on station KFWB and the Dodgers Radio Network.
Monday and his wife Barbaralee have received numerous accolades for their outreach and charity work, including a presidential commendation for "Service to Others," the Boy Scouts of America "Patriotism Award," the U.S. Marine Corps "Lifetime Achievement Award," "Baseball Against Drugs (BADD) "Lifetime Achievement Award" and the Louisville Slugger "Humanitarian Award."
Over the years, the former Dodger has done pubic service announcements, signed hundreds of baseballs and posters, and appeared at special events for the St. Vincent de Paul Society.
"Expanding the summer camp is a great idea," he said. "Because what we need to provide is not only for our own children, but we need to make sure that we allow everyone to have opportunities. And if we can give someone a little ray of sunshine, they might be able to take it and run with it."
Monday did exactly that after his father abandoned his family when Rick was 12.
"My mother did a fabulous job of allowing me to grow up and protecting and leading me," he recalled. "She did a wonderful job as a single parent. Then my coaches in Pony League, American Legion and high school helped me in life at a critical time. So to this day, I say if I am anything, those three gentlemen had something to do with it."
The first person chosen in the first major league baseball draft believes the same thing can happen to the boys and girls who attend the Circle V Ranch Camp's summer program near Santa Barbara. Proceeds from the 100th anniversary gala, which will feature live and silent auctions, will go towards expanding the camp to a year-round program for students who attend off-track schools that are in session during summer months.
"There are a whole lot of kids who don't have a mother, who don't have a father or don't have someone who really cares about what they do and who they hang out with," Monday pointed out. "And if a counselor or coach at the camp can connect with them, that could really make a difference in their development - and their whole life."
Sports were also an important part of Louis Gossett, Jr.'s early life. The 6'4'' Brooklyn native attended New York University on an athletic scholarship, and became a star basketball player. After graduating from NYU, he played briefly with the New York Knicks in 1958 before deciding to focus on acting.
In 1961, he performed alongside Sidney Poitier in "A Raisin in the Sun," the acclaimed play and film about an African American family. After appearing in many films and TV network series, he landed the part of Fiddler in the 1977 landmark ABC miniseries "Roots," winning an Emmy.
His prolific body of film and TV work includes "The Deep," "Enemy Mine," "Toy Soldiers," "Sadat," "Iron Eagle" and the science fiction series "Stargate SG-1." His role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film "An Officer and a Gentleman" won Gossett an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
Reportedly, Pope Benedict XVI - after he assumed the papacy - watched a private screening of "An Officer and a Gentleman" and was so impressed with Gossett's performance that he asked the Vatican Radio Network to interview the actor for its show "In Confidence."
An alumnus of the Boys and Girls Clubs of America, the 71-year-old actor has been involved with the service organization for years as well as the NAACP and CARE. He has also worked to help build New Orleans with the organization Renew Orleans.
But in creating the Eracism Foundation, Gossett has dedicated the last quadrant of his life to an "all-out conscientious offensive" against racism, focusing on the education and moral development of children.
"We have been a little derelict by allowing the media and music and hip-hop to raise our children, when it's our responsibility," he noted. "Sometimes we use single parenthood as an excuse from keeping our families tight. It can't be an excuse anymore because children are everybody's responsibility."
The actor proposes conflict resolution and history classes to teach different ethic and racial groups about each other, mixed with intense workshops on English, reading and computers plus a healthy dose of personal responsibility. And he hopes to put into practice the first large scale Eracism curriculum at the Council of Los Angeles' camp this summer.
"I think you should take disadvantaged kids out of their environment and give them some solid foundation," Gossett said. "We have to create a fertile atmosphere to nurture our children, mentor them, discipline them and teach them. They have to have respect for the opposite sex, for their elders, knowledge of their history, why they're on the planet and what's expected from them.
"We have to behave the way we pray," he stressed. "We need to get back to that 'one-nation-under-God' thing." Editor's note: For information about the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, Council of Los Angeles' 100th anniversary "An Evening of Love and Laughter" on Feb. 16, call Kim Rathman, Ph.D., at (323)276-6083 or visit www.svdpla.org.
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