Be Better Guys

Gabrielle Union always struck me as the girl from your neighborhood who you’d known since 6th grade, who you’d had a crush in high school but never did anything about, because you were friends and because she could outscore you in hoops. Then, you see her years later and it’s like “Wow!” She’s all grown-up, a higher-resolution, upgraded version of the cute girl you knew. And still freezes you with the stutter-step heading to the hoop.

Interestingly, the first real look any of us got of Gabrielle was in a high school-themed movie, Bring it On as Isis, the lead cheerleader of the rival squad. Now, if you were paying attention, you saw the Omaha, Nebraska native in various television shows and movies like 10 Things I Hate About You, with Heath Ledger, Julia Stiles, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt or Love and Basketball with Sanaa Latham. She’s starred in a few more since then, Bad Boys II, Deliver Us From Eva, and the lesbian girlfriend of the lead character’s mom (Annette Benning) in Running with Scissors, among them, but she’s a reluctant actress — a former jock and gym rat who happens to look like a screen goddess. And let’s be frank, she is stunning, even more so in person (I know from NBA All-Star Game Weekend, 2002).

Athletics took her from Omaha to Los Angeles (soccer). Ambition got her on the big screen, and hard work keeps her cropping up, most recently in the ABC show “Fast Forward.” And if you get Men’s Health, you can read her advice on hooking up. Always “that girl.”