Mark C. Black passed away on Friday, August 7th of natural causes. He was 49 years old. Mark was born in 1959 in Buffalo, New York and grew up in Bronx, New York, Montclair, New Jersey and eventually moved to State College, Pennsylvania where he graduated from the State College Alternative High School. A sports enthusiast, Mark participated in track and field, and football as a teenager, and martial arts and weightlifting as an adult. He closely followed a wide variety of professional sports teams as well as individual careers and had a nuanced appreciation of football and an extraordinary recall for sports trivia. Loyal, he maintained an unwavering fidelity to the Buffalo Bills despite their consistently disastrous performance. In addition to sports, Mark was a tremendous movie buff and, to the amusement and encouragement of his family, could re-enact lengthy memorized sections of dialogue complete with meticulously practiced intonation, physical gestures, and humorous interpretation. He did this with searing precision and comedic brilliance. Mark was also an opinionated, wry and witty social commentator, who diligently kept abreast of current events and had poignant memories of participating in the Civil Rights movement as a child. Mark, who hated crowds, was proud to have voted for the first time in the 2008 Presidential elections casting an absentee ballot for Barack Obama. Mark is preceded in death by his father, John Black, and survived by mother Bernice Black, brother Douglass Black (Tammy), sister Jennifer Black, Zoe Black his niece, and Shango Black-Smith his nephew. Additionally he is survived by grandmother, Luzella Mack of Detroit, Michigan, step-grandmother Dorothy Bates of Buffalo, New York, and numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins who will dearly miss him. In lieu of flowers please send memorial contributions to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Health which conducts research on schizophrenia.