Eddie Robinson (American football coach)

Eddie Robinson
Robinson c. 1980
Sport(s) Football, basketball
Biographical details
Born (1919-02-13)February 13, 1919
Jackson, Louisiana
Died April 3, 2007(2007-04-03) (aged 88)
Ruston, Louisiana
Alma mater

McKinley Senior High School
Leland College

University of Iowa
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
Football
1941–1997 Grambling
Basketball
1943–1956 Grambling
Head coaching record
Overall 408–165–15 (football)
Bowls 9–6
Tournaments 0–3 (NCAA D-I-AA playoffs)
Accomplishments and honors
Championships
Football
9 Black college national
17 SWAC
College Football Hall of Fame
Inducted in 1997 (profile)

Eddie Gay Robinson, Sr. (February 13, 1919 – April 3, 2007) was an American football coach. He coached the second most victories in NCAA Division I history and the third most overall. From 1985 to 2011, Robinson held the Division I record for most wins. He held the record again from July 2012 to January 2015, as 111 of Joe Paterno's wins had been vacated during that time as a result of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal and subsequent NCAA sanctions. With the restoration of the wins by the NCAA in 2015, Paterno has again been recognized as the Division I record holder.

For 56 years, from 1941 to 1942 and again from 1945 to 1997, he was the head coach at Grambling State University, a historically black university (HBCU) in Grambling, Louisiana. Robinson is recognized by many college football experts as one of the greatest coaches in history. During a period in college football history when black players were not allowed to play for southern college programs, Robinson built Grambling State into a "small" college football powerhouse. He retired in 1997 with a record of 408 wins, 165 losses, and 15 ties. Robinson coached every single game from the field and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.

Biography

Robinson was born in Jackson in East Feliciana Parish in South Louisiana, to the son of a sharecropper and a domestic worker. He graduated in 1937 from McKinley Senior High School in the capital city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana and briefly attended Southern University there. He then played quarterback and earned his bachelor's degree in English at Leland College in Baker, Louisiana,[1] before obtaining his master's degree in 1954 from the University of Iowa in Iowa City—at which he was a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Career

Robinson dreamed of becoming a college football coach himself, but he faced an enormous drawback—he was black in the days of Jim Crow discrimination. The only college position he could possibly hope to obtain would be at a traditionally all-black school, and these were all well staffed. Having earned his bachelor's degree at Leland, Robinson returned to Baton Rouge and took a job at a feed mill for 25 cents an hour. Not long after that, he heard that the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute—now Grambling State University—was searching for a new football coach. He applied for the job and was hired by the school's president and baseball coach, Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones.

In 1941 the 22-year old Robinson assumed his duties as head football coach at Grambling State. The days of assistant coaches, offensive and defensive coordinators, and specialty coaches were long in the future, so Robinson did everything: he taught offense and defense, mowed the football field, fixed sandwiches for road trips through towns that would not serve blacks in restaurants, taped his players' sore joints, and even wrote game stories for the newspapers. He had strict standards of personal conduct and educational achievement for his players. In his first year the team went 3–5–1, but the following season—during which he recruited new players and dismissed those who did not live up to his expectations—the Tigers had a perfect 9–0 season, going unbeaten, untied, and unscored upon.

More than 200 of his players went on to play in the American Football League, CFL, and NFL. Robinson coached three American Football League players who would later be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame: the Kansas City Chiefs' Buck Buchanan; the Oakland Raiders' Willie Brown; and the Houston Oilers' Charlie Joiner. Robinson also coached James Harris, who with the AFL's Buffalo Bills became the first black quarterback in modern Pro Football history to start at that position in a season opener. He also coached Packers defensive end and Hall of Famer Willie Davis and the Super Bowl XXII MVP, Redskins quarterback Doug Williams, who would ultimately succeed Robinson as Grambling's head coach in 1998.

During his coaching career, Robinson compiled 45 winning seasons, including winning or sharing 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference championships and nine black college football national championships.[2]

Enormous publicity attended Robinson's record-breaking win with Grambling State in 1985. Some observers feared that the coach would become the target of white hatred, much as Henry Aaron had when he broke Babe Ruth's home run record. Instead Robinson reported that he did not receive a single hate letter, even from the legion of southern fans who worshiped Bear Bryant. When asked if his record was somehow tarnished by the fact that his team played most of its games against Division I-AA caliber competition, Robinson told Sports Illustrated: "I grew up in the South. I was told where to attend elementary school, where to attend junior high school, where to attend high school. When I became a coach, I was told who I could recruit, who I could play, where I could play and when I could play. I did what I could within the system." He added that his philosophy had always been "whatever league you're in, whatever level, win there."

Eddie Robinson held several jobs other than football coach, including teaching at Grambling High School, and coaching the girls basketball team during World War II. His girls team lost the state championship by 1 point. He also coached boys basketball, baseball, directed the band, and was in charge of the cheerleaders—with a budget of $46.

Robinson recorded just one losing season between 1960 and 1990; however, after three consecutive losing seasons in the mid-1990s, pressure mounted for the now 78-year old coach to resign. Fellow college coach Joe Paterno is quoted in the Grambling State press guide as saying, "Nobody has ever done or ever will do what Eddie Robinson has done for the game... Our profession will never, ever be able to repay Eddie Robinson for what he has done for the country and the profession of football."

In 1997 news escaped that Grambling was planning to dismiss him in mid-season. Public outcry—including condemnation from Louisiana elected officials like then-Gov. Mike Foster[3]—led Grambling to retain Robinson's services through the remainder of the season.

Robinson developed Alzheimer's disease after his retirement.[4] He died on April 3, 2007, at Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston, Louisiana, after having been admitted earlier in the day.[5]

Robinson and his wife, Doris, who died at the age of ninety-six in September 2015,[6] had two children; Eddie, Jr. and Lillian Rose Robinson.

Awards and honors

In 1979 the Black College All Star Bowl committee named its award for outstanding NFL rookies from HBCUs the "Eddie G. Robinson Trophy;" its inaugural winner was Doug Williams.[7] Grambling named its football facility, built in 1983, Eddie Robinson Stadium. A street on GSU's campus is also named for him.[8] In 1985 South 13th Street in Baton Rouge was renamed for him.[9] The Los Angeles Football Classic Foundation's HBCU national title award was called the "Eddie Robinson Trophy" in 1988.[10] Beginning in 1994, a different Eddie Robinson Trophy was awarded in Atlanta to the top HBCU player of the year.[11] In 1997 the Football Writers Association of America's Eddie Robinson Award was renamed for him.[9] The Eddie Robinson Classic (held from 1997–2002) was named for him. The American Urban Radio Networks has sponsored an award for HBCU coaches called the "SBN Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year;" it was won by Grambling's own Broderick Fobbs in 2014.[12] The Eddie G. Robinson Classic series of high school football games, begun in 2015, was also named after him.[13]

Robinson received the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award from the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) in 1982 and the Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award from the United States Sports Academy in 1985. Robinson was the 1992 winner of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award, which was established to honor the NCAA Division I football coach whose team excels on the field, in the classroom, and in the community; the award is named for Bobby Dodd, longtime head football coach of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and was established in 1976 to honor the values that Dodd exemplified.[14] Robinson was awarded the General Robert R. Neyland trophy by the Knoxville Quarterback club in 1999.[15]

Super Bowl XXXII, played at Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, was dedicated to Robinson. He was accompanied onto the field by Williams and Joe Gibbs to perform the ceremonial coin toss.

Eddie G. Robinson Museum on the campus of Grambling State University

Museum

In 2010, the Eddie G. Robinson Museum opened on GSU's campus.[16] The museum chronicles and celebrates the major accomplishments of the G-Men football program and former head coach Eddie Robinson.[17] The museum is 18,000 square feet and cost approximately $3.3 million to complete.[18]

In media

In the 1981 TV movie Grambling's White Tiger set in late 1960s, about the true story of Jim Gregory, the first white quarterback at Grambling, Robinson is played by Harry Belafonte.


Head coaching record

Football

Today's Grambling State University was Grambling College from 1946 through 1973.
It was Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute (commonly Louisiana Normal) from 1928 through 1945.

Year Team Overall ConferenceStanding Bowl/playoffs NCAA# TSN°
Louisiana Normal Tigers (Independent) (1941–1945)
1941 Louisiana Normal 1–5–1
1942 Louisiana Normal 9–0
1943 No team—World War II
1944 No team—World War II
1945 Louisiana Normal 10–2W Flower[19]
Grambling Tigers (Independent) (1946–1951)
1946 Grambling 6–6
1947 Grambling 10–2L Vulcan
1948 Grambling 8–2
1949 Grambling 7–3–2
1950 Grambling 6–4–1
1951 Grambling 3–5–1
Grambling Tigers (Midwestern Athletic Conference) (1952–1957)
1952 Grambling 7–3–1
1953 Grambling 8–2
1955 Grambling 4–3–2
1955 Grambling 10–0W Orange Blossom Classic
1956 Grambling 8–1
1957 Grambling 4–4
Grambling Tigers (Southwestern Athletic Conference) (1958–1973)
1958 Grambling 6–31–36th
1959 Grambling 4–62–5T–5th
1960 Grambling 9–16–1T–1st
1961 Grambling 8–25–2T–2nd
1962 Grambling 6–2–23–3–23rd
1963 Grambling 5–3–13–3–1T–4th
1964 Grambling 9–26–12ndL Orange Blossom Classic
1965 Grambling 8–36–11stL Pecan
1966 Grambling 6–2–14–2–1T–1st
1967 Grambling 9–16–11stW Orange Blossom Classic
1968 Grambling 9–26–11stW Pasadena
1969 Grambling 6–45–23rdL Orange Blossom Classic
1970 Grambling 9–25–12nd
1971 Grambling 9–25–11st
1972 Grambling 11–25–1T–1stW Pelican
1973 Grambling 10–35–1T–1stW Boardwalk (Division II first round)
L Grantland Rice (Division II semifinal)
Grambling State Tigers (Southwestern Athletic Conference) (1974–1997)
1974 Grambling State 11–15–1T–1stW Pelican
1975 Grambling State 10–24–2T–1st
1976 Grambling State 8–44–2T–2nd
1977 Grambling State 10–16–01stW Mirage
1978 Grambling State 9–1–15–0–11stL Orange Blossom Classic
1979 Grambling State 8–35–1T–1st1
1980 Grambling State 10–25–1T–1stL NCAA Division I-AA Semifinal2
1981 Grambling State 6–4–14–1–12nd
1982 Grambling State 8–35–12nd10
1983 Grambling State 8–1–26–0–11st10
1984 Grambling State 7–45–23rd
1985 Grambling State 9–36–11stL NCAA Division I-AA First Round8
1986 Grambling State 7–44–3T–3rd
1987 Grambling State 5–63–4T–5th
1988 Grambling State 8–35–22nd18
1989 Grambling State 9–37–01stL NCAA Division I-AA First Round19
1990 Grambling State 8–33–3T–3rd
1991 Grambling State 5–63–4T–6th
1992 Grambling State 10–26–12ndW Heritage
1993 Grambling State 7–44–33rd
1994 Grambling State 9–36–1T–1stW Heritage7
1995 Grambling State 5–64–34th
1996 Grambling State 3–82–5T–6th
1997 Grambling State 3–82–6T–7th
La. Normal / Grambling / Grambling St.: 408–165–15[20]
Total:408–165–15
      National championship         Conference title         Conference division title or championship game berth

See also

References

  1. ↑ Joe Planas (October 7, 1985). "Robinson moves out front to bask in splendid glory". Baton Rouge Morning Advocate (sec. D, p. 1).
  2. ↑ EDDIE ROBINSON: 1919-2007 - Robinson's Record Archived 2007-06-14 at the Wayback Machine.. The Advocate. April 5, 2007
  3. ↑ "Farewell loss can't tarnish Robinson's winning legacy". southcoasttoday.com. November 30, 1997. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  4. ↑ Foster, Mary (August 2, 2004). "Ex-Grambling Coach Endures Alzheimer's". Associated Press. Archived from the original on August 3, 2004. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  5. ↑ Foster, Mary (April 4, 2007). "Legendary Grambling coach Robinson dies". Associated Press. Archived from the original on April 4, 2007. Retrieved November 26, 2015.
  6. ↑ http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/wife-of-legendary-grambling-coach-eddie-robinson-dies-at-96-091615
  7. ↑ "Black College Bowl Honors NFL Rookie Doug Williams". Jet (vol. 55, no. 16, p. 52). January 4, 1979.
  8. ↑ "Eddie G. Robinson". encyclopedia.com. 2007. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  9. 1 2 "Accomplishments". robinsonmuseum.com. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Central State Marauders, 'Tank' Younger Feted In L.A." Jet (p. 49). May 22, 1989.
  11. ↑ "Eddie Robinson Trophy to be awarded". Deseret News (sec. D, p. 2). September 21, 1994.
  12. ↑ "Fobbs Named the Eddie Robinson Coach of the Year". gsutigers.com. January 22, 2015. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  13. ↑ "Introducing the Inaugural Eddie G. Robinson Classic". egrobinsonclassic.com. 2015. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
  14. ↑ "Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Foundation—Past Winners". Bobby Dodd Foundation. Archived from the original on December 9, 2009. Retrieved December 17, 2012.
  15. ↑ "General Robert R Neyland Trophy". knoxqbclub.com. Retrieved January 31, 2018.
  16. ↑ Samuel G. Freedman (February 12, 2010). "Louisiana Museum Confronts Segregation". nytimes.com. Retrieved December 11, 2015.
  17. ↑ http://www.thenewsstar.com/story/life/discover/2017/06/25/gateway-american-folklore/357734001/
  18. ↑ https://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/13grambling.html
  19. ↑ AP (January 2, 1946). "Louisiana Normal Is Flower Bowl Victor". Lubbock Morning Avalanche. Lubbock, Texas. Retrieved February 18, 2017 – via newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ http://www.robinsonmuseum.com/pages/bio.php
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