Eddie Robinson (American football coach)

Eddie Robinson
Sport(s)	Football
Biographical details
Born	(1919-02-13)February 13, 1919 Jackson, Louisiana
Died	April 3, 2007(2007-04-03) (aged 88) Ruston, Louisiana
Coaching career (HC unless noted)
1941–1998	Grambling
Head coaching record
Overall	408–165–15
Statistics College Football Data Warehouse
College Football Hall of Fame Inducted in 1997 (profile)

Edward Gay Robinson (February 13, 1919 – April 3, 2007) was an American football coach. He is the second winningest coach in Division I (NCAA). For 57 years from 1941 to 1997, he was the head coach at Grambling State University, a historically black university in Louisiana. Robinson is reconized 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 major 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, Louisiana, to the son of a sharecropper and a domestic worker. He went on to graduate from McKinley Senior High School in Baton Rouge in 1937. He went on to earn his bachelor's degree from Leland College in Baker in East Baton Rouge Parish, then went on to obtain his Master's degree from the University of Iowa in Iowa City in 1954. Robinson is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity.

Career

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

Robinson spent 56 years as the head coach at historically black Grambling State University in Grambling in Lincoln Parish in northern Louisiana beginning in 1941 when he was hired by college president and head baseball coach, Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones.

Robinson is second in overall college football wins, behind John Gagliardi (Division III St. John's University) (Robinson was formerly also behind Joe Paterno until the NCAA vacated 111 of Paterno's victories). 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.

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.

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. Then as now, 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 on.

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 worshipped 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 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 — led Grambling to retain Robinson's services through the remainder of the season.

Robinson was the 1992 winner of the Bobby Dodd Coach of the Year Award, which was established to honor the NCAA Division 1 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. The award was established in 1976 to honor the values that Dodd exemplified.

Robinson developed Alzheimer's Disease after his retirement and died on April 3, 2007, at Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston, Louisiana, after being admitted earlier in the day.

Coaching career

Year	Team	W	L	T	Pct.	PF	PA
1941*	Grambling	3	5	0	.375	18	47
1942*	Grambling	9	0	0	1.000	93	0
1945*	Grambling	10	2	0	.833	214	65
1946*	Grambling	6	6	0	.500	174	145
1947*	Grambling	9	2	0	.818	245	64
1948*	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	289	110
1949	Grambling	7	3	2	.667	234	95
1950	Grambling	5	3	1	.611	160	156
1951	Grambling	3	5	1	.389	147	154
1952	Grambling	7	3	1	.682	208	184
1953	Grambling	8	2	0	.800	246	88
1954	Grambling	4	3	2	.556	206	140
1955	Grambling	10	0	0	1.000	330	54
1956	Grambling	8	1	0	.889	312	97
1957	Grambling	4	4	0	.500	212	187
1958	Grambling	6	3	0	.667	238	132
1959	Grambling	4	6	0	.400	268	145
1960	Grambling	9	1	0	.900	417	78
1961	Grambling	8	2	0	.800	375	110
1962	Grambling	6	2	2	.700	281	144
1963	Grambling	5	3	1	.611	249	151
1964	Grambling	9	2	0	.818	314	181
1965	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	352	195
1966	Grambling	6	2	1	.722	267	199
1967	Grambling	9	1	0	.900	318	145
1968	Grambling	9	2	0	.818	314	201
1969	Grambling	6	4	0	.600	324	196
1970	Grambling	9	2	0	.818	384	183
1971	Grambling	9	2	0	.818	341	147
1972	Grambling	11	2	0	.846	347	123
1973	Grambling	10	3	0	.769	340	176
1974	Grambling	11	1	0	.917	308	120
1975	Grambling	10	1	0	.909	324	153
1976	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	313	201
1977	Grambling	10	1	0	.909	462	175
1978	Grambling	9	1	1	.864	246	120
1979	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	281	144
1980	Grambling	10	2	0	.833	415	166
1981	Grambling	6	4	1	.591	235	208
1982	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	322	193
1983	Grambling	8	1	2	.818	286	95
1984	Grambling	7	4	0	.636	278	203
1985	Grambling	9	3	0	.750	317	168
1986	Grambling	7	4	0	.636	249	195
1987	Grambling	5	6	0	.455	278	208
1988	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	314	185
1989	Grambling	9	3	0	.750	464	215
1990	Grambling	8	3	0	.727	364	227
1991	Grambling	5	6	0	.455	330	338
1992	Grambling	10	2	0	.833	483	242
1993	Grambling	7	4	0	.636	337	206
1994	Grambling	9	3	0	.750	479	262
1995	Grambling	5	6	0	.455	340	191
1996	Grambling	3	8	0	.273	161	218
1997	Grambling	3	8	0	.273	187	258
CAREER TOTAL		408	165	15	.707	15990	8783

*Not yet an accredited college

Awards and honors

The Football Writers Association of America's Eddie Robinson Award is named for him. Grambling also named its football facility Eddie Robinson Stadium.

Robinson received the 1985 Amos Alonzo Stagg Award from the United States Sports Academy in recognition of his outstanding achievement as a coach.

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.

Special Note

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.

See also

• List of presidents of the American Football Coaches Association
• List of college football coaches with 200 wins

External links

• Eddie Robinson at Find a Grave
• Eddie Robinson at the College Football Hall of Fame
• Eddie Robinson at the College Football Data Warehouse
• Works by or about Eddie Robinson in libraries (WorldCat catalog)