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Rolando Antonio Blackman, who has owned a home in Greenwich, turns 55 on Wednesday. The basketball player was born February 26, 1959, in Panama City, Panama.
Blackman attended Kansas State University where he played basketball and was named the Big Eight Conference Player of the Year and scored 1,844 career points, the second-highest total in Kansas State history.
He was drafted by the Mavericks in the first round (9th overall) of the 1981 NBA Draft and became the first Panamanian-born to play in the NBA. He scored 16,643 points and 6,487 field goals with the Mavericks. His points total ranks as the 60th-best in NBA history.
He signed with the Greek League team AEK Athens BC in the middle of the 1994-95 season.
He served as an assistant coach for the German National team and helped lead them to a bronze medal at the 2002 World Basketball Championships in Indianapolis.
For the 2005-06 NBA season, he returned to the Mavericks' bench, serving his first season as a full-fledged assistant coach and was promoted to the position of Director of Player Development in July 2006.
He is now an assistant coach with the Turkey national basketball team.
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