Legendary Grambling coach Robinson dies at 88

Fought battle with Alzheimer’s

To his very last day, Eddie Robinson was always battling something.

There was the institutional racism that surrounded him, the piddling football budget he and his coaching staff subsisted on at predominantly black Grambling State and, ultimately, the Alzheimer’s disease that took his life at age 88.

“He’d been fighting that battle for a long time,” said former Grambling quarterback and Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams. “It was one of the many he fought in his lifetime.”

Robinson died Tuesday night, not long after being admitted to Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston, La., Williams said.

He was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease shortly after he he retired in 1997 and had been in and out of a nursing home during the past year.

And so ended the life of a beloved football coach who put a small school in remote northern Louisiana on the map and turned it into a virtual farm team for the NFL during a career that spanned 57 years.

Robinson built a football powerhouse with a worldwide reputation, all the while struggling to get past years of segregation and discrimination against blacks.

His success at Grambling no doubt made him the first easily recognizable black coach in any sport.

“Today we mourn the loss of a great Louisianan and a true American hero,” Louisiana Gov.

Kathleen Blanco said. “Coach Eddie Robinson became the most successful college coach of all time and one of the greatest civil rights pioneers in our history. . . . Coach Robinson elevated a small town program to national prominence and tore down barriers to achieve an equal playing field for athletes of all races.”

Robinson won 408 games, the most ever for any coach at the time of his retirement in 1997. He sent hundreds of players to the NFL and other leagues, and the majority of them were clutching college degrees when they left.

“We will be forever grateful for the more than 200 young men he developed at Grambling who starred in the NFL and those who later coached the next generation of NFL players,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said. “He always focused on coaching his players to be better men as well as better football players.”

Robinson’s career spanned 11 presidents, several wars and the civil rights movement. Though his teams struggled during his final years, his overall record of excellence is what will be remembered: 408-165-15.

Until John Gagliardi of St. John’s, Minn., topped the victory mark four years ago, Robinson was the winningest coach in all of college football.

Robinson’s teams had only eight losing seasons and won 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and nine national black college championships. He was inducted into every hall of fame for which he was eligible, and received honorary degrees from several universities, including Yale.

Robinson began his storied career at Grambling with no paid assistants, no groundskeepers, no trainers and little in the way of equipment. He lined the field himself and fixed lunchmeat sandwiches for road trips because the players could not eat in the “white only” restaurants of the South.

Somehow, he never seemed bitter when recalling these experiences.

“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,” Robinson said. “Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven’t.”

In 1968, refusing to be tied to a tiny home stadium on a hard-to-reach campus, Robinson took Grambling’s football show on the road, playing at some very famous addresses, including Yankee Stadium.

Jerry Izenberg, the sports columnist emeritus at the Star-Ledger of Newark and a close friend of Robinson since 1963, said the coach was an inspiration in the deep South.

“People look at black pride in America and sports’ impact on it,” Izenberg said. “In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling.”

Running back Paul “Tank” Younger signed with the Los Angeles Rams and became the first player from an all-black college to enter the NFL. Suddenly, pro scouts learned how to find the little school 65 miles east of Shreveport near the Arkansas border.

Robinson sent over 200 players to the NFL, including seven firstround draft choices and Williams, who succeeded Robinson as Grambling’s coach in 1998. Others went to the Canadian Football League and the now-defunct USFL.

Robinson’s pro stars included Willie Davis, James Harris, Ernie Ladd, Buck Buchanan, Sammy White, Cliff McNeil, Willie Brown, Roosevelt Taylor, Charlie Joiner and Willie Williams.

Robinson is survived by his wife, Doris, son Eddie Robinson Jr., daughter Lillian Rose Robinson, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. His body will lie in state in the rotunda of the state Capitol Monday. The funeral will be in the new assembly center at Grambling on Wednesday.