Sinbad

While assigned to the 384th Air Refueling Wing at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas, he would often travel downtown to perform stand-up comedy.

David Adkins (born November 10, 1956), better known by his stage name Sinbad, is an American stand-up comedian and actor.

Sinbad was born November 10, 1956, in Benton Harbor, Michigan, the son of Louise and a Baptist minister, Dr. Donald Beckley Adkins Sr.

He has five siblings: Donna, Dorothea, Mark, Michael, and Donald Jr. His paternal grandmother was of Irish descent.

Sinbad attended Benton Harbor High School and graduated in 1974.

He attended college from 1974 to 1978 at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, where he lettered two seasons for the basketball team.

Sinbad served in the United States Air Force as a boom operator aboard KC-135 Stratotankers.

He competed as a comedian/MC in the Air Force's Talent Contest in 1981.

Sinbad was almost dismissed with a dishonorable discharge for various misbehaviors, including going AWOL.

I didn't make the Air Force basketball team and went into denial.

So, I kept going AWOL.

My mother kept begging me to go back.

I told her, "No, I'm not going back. I'll just grow a beard. They won't recognize me. I'll just be another black man with a beard."

I was going to Georgia Tech to learn about computers.

I'd go AWOL all the time.

I'd just leave.

I'd come back, hoping they'd throw me out.

After a series of incidents, he was eventually discharged "for parking my car in the wrong position."

In an attempt to stand out in the entertainment industry, Adkins worked under the professional name Sinbad, which he chose out of admiration for Sinbad the Sailor.

He began his stand-up comic career appearing on Star Search.

Sinbad won his round against fellow comedian Dennis Miller, and made it to the finals before losing to John Kassir.

He soon was cast on The Redd Foxx Show, a short lived sitcom, playing Byron Lightfoot.

In 1987, Sinbad landed a role in A Different World, a spin-off of The Cosby Show built around Lisa Bonet's character Denise Huxtable.

Previously, Sinbad appeared in a one-off role on The Cosby Show as car salesman Davis Sarrette.

While Bonet only stayed with the program for a season, Sinbad stayed with the cast from 1988 until 1991 as Coach Walter Oakes.

Walter began to fall in love with a girl named Jaleesa Vinson, played by Dawnn Lewis.

They dated, and eventually became engaged but decided to cancel the wedding due to differing outlooks on life.

He has also appeared in films such as That's Adequate (1989), Coneheads (1993), Houseguest (1995), Jingle All the Way (1996), Crazy as Hell (2002) and Planes (2013).

He became known in the 1990s from being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series, most notably as Coach Walter Oakes in A Different World (1987–1991) and as David Bryan on The Sinbad Show (1993–1994).

By the early 1990s, his popularity had grown enough for Fox to greenlight The Sinbad Show, which premiered September 16, 1993.

In it, Sinbad played 35-year-old David Bryan, a bachelor who decides to become a foster parent to two children after becoming emotionally attached to them.

Around that time, Sinbad had received joint custody of his two children: Royce, age 4; and Paige, age 7, and told the press that these experiences informed him of single parenting.

Black men are already responsible, already take care of our duties, but nobody emphasizes that.

I hear all this bad talk against men and their children.

I just got so tired of it.

More than anything else, I'm showing that life has changed, the world has changed.

And now the key is not going to just be parenting, it's going to be mentoring, where people who are not even in your family are going to have to go in and help.

And we are going to accept that responsibility, which we used to do in our culture.

The Sinbad Show was canceled, with the last episode airing April 21, 1994.

However, the role earned him a nomination in the 1995 Kids' Choice Awards for "Favorite Television Actor".