Grambling Man

There are some people whose greatness exceeds sport, and Eddie Robinson is one of those people. He wasn't just a great coach, he was a great man.

"When you talk about the Martin Luther Kings, he did that in a different arena," said Grambling star Doug Williams. "He told us you can do anything you want in America. People talk about the Joe Paternos, Bobby Bowdens and Bear Bryants as the greatest coaches of the 20th century. He deserves to be at the top of that list because of what he accomplished, given what he had to work with."

Robinson had forty-five winning seasons in 56 years as a head coach. In his second season, his team won all of its nine games without surrendering a single point. His total of 408 victories is the second most wins ever in college football. His Tigers won nine Black college national championships, and at one point they were South Western Athletic Conference champions or co-champions for 17 consecutive seasons. Over 200 of his players were drafted into the NFL, four were inducted into the Hall of Fame, and one -Doug Williams- became the first and still only Black quarterback to win a Super Bowl. In a coaching career that spanned more than half a century, Robinson won seven out of every ten games, and eight out of every ten of his players earned a college degree. Consider that today, in the United States, there are more young Black men in the penal system than in college and put that into context.

But even more impressive than WHAT Coach Rob did was when he did it. He was born the son of a sharecropper in 1919 in Jackson, Louisiana, one of the deepest parts of the deep south, during the heyday of Jim Crow. He coached during an era when Black schools and sports programs were treated as second class citizens. For years, he had to make sandwiches for his players because they couldn't eat in white owned restaurants during road trips. Even in the 1970s after his program was pillaged for talent by predominantly white colleges, Grambling's football success continued. Robinson, like so many of Black America's great leaders, handled injustice with dignity. The best way to enjoy life in America is to first be an American, and I don't think you have to be white to do so," he was quoted as saying. "Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven't."

"Nobody in America, not even the President - there ain't nobody out there that can out-American Eddie Robinson. He loved to wave that flag." - Former Grambling and NFL quarterback Doug Williams.

But perhaps what is most impressive and inspirational is HOW Eddie Robinson lived his life. For all his accolades -the victories, awards, and a football stadium named in his honor- his proudest accomplishment was that he "had he same job and the same wife for over fifty years." Consider that more half of the African American males in New York City are currently unemployed. Think about how many sisters talk about how hard it is to find a good brother, and put 56 successful years on the job and 75 years of wedded bliss into context.

Coach Rob was not an intimidator. He didn't menace or cajole his players into success; he loved them into it. Former Super Bowl champion and Grambling alum Everson Walls recalled that "Coach Rob," as he was known, always wanted to end practice with a touchdown, and the defense was loathe to give it up. As practice drew on and Walls and the defense refused to budge, Coach Rob would start to trash talk his own defense. That's what kind of coach he was. "He would trash talk like one of the boys," Walls told the Daily News. "That's what I loved about him."

Eddie Robinson was universally loved, adored, revered and respected. He holds a rightful place in the annals of sports history, but his life offers lessons that transcend the gridiron, lessons about dedication, love, selflessness, dignity and respect. "Our practice field was basically sand," said Williams. "Coach did it with no resources. Coach Rob had a cliché: 'We've done so much with so little you can do almost anything with nothing.'"