College Football : At 70, Robinson Isn’t Slowing Down in Chasing Another Ghost

Eddie Robinson doesn’t dwell on records. In fact, other people place more significance on what he has accomplished than he does.

The 70-year-old Grambling football coach improves on his record of 349 victories over 47 seasons every time his team wins a game.

Yet, there’s still another milestone obtainable--if he cares to pursue it.

The late Amos Alonzo Stagg coached for 57 years, an impressive longevity record.

“I’m just going to play it year by year,” Robinson said. “My wife, Doris, hints that she wants me to give it up. However, she never lets a trip pass her by. She always has her bags packed. In earlier years, we didn’t have enough money to afford her to go with me.”

Another trip is imminent when Robinson brings his Grambling State University team from Louisiana to the Coliseum Sunday to play Alcorn State of Mississippi in a game billed as the Los Angeles Football Classic.

“When you talk about records, the only true one is that I married my wife on May 21, 1941, and on Aug. 31 I became the coach at Grambling,” Robinson said. “So I got my wife and my job at the same time.”

Let’s put 1941 in perspective. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was just starting his third term as President. Paul Brown was still coaching at Ohio State. Ram Coach John Robinson was only 6 years old.

Eddie Robinson recalls that he was awed when he met Stagg at a coaching convention here in 1956.

“I waited in a line that seemed a mile long to meet him. I was so impressed by him that I wondered if he had three eyes and three ears,” Robinson said, adding that he was overcome emotionally when he was standing in front of Stagg.

Robinson chuckled and said, “Another coach behind me said, ‘Eddie, just kiss him and move on.’ ”

Robinson arrived at Grambling at the same time the school changed its name.

“I think it was done because of the cheerleaders,” Robinson said. “Before they could say, ‘Hold that line, Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute,’ hell, the other team would score.”

Almost as impressive as Robinson’s 349 victories, his team has had only four losing seasons since he began coaching.

In 1943 and ‘44, Grambling didn’t field a team because of World War II priorities. So he coached the Grambling High School team.

One of his star players was Tank Younger, who went on to play for the university when the school resumed football in 1945.

Younger had a distinguished playing career with the Rams and is recognized as the first player from a predominately black college to play in the National Football League.

An administrator with the Rams, Younger says he still stays in close contact with Robinson.

“I’ve talked to him an average of three or four times a month for the past 40 years,” Younger said. “Everyone gets down on himself once in a while and, when I do, I call Eddie. Calling Eddie always gives me a lift. It was like therapy.”

Younger added that he has never made a major decision in his professional life without consulting Robinson.

“There are five men who have had a profound effect on my life,” Younger said. “My father, my godfather, Dan Reeves (the late Rams’ owner), Eugene Klein (former owner of the San Diego Chargers) and Eddie.

“He always had a way of making people like him. He just had a way of communicating with people he coached.”

Younger said Robinson was a disciplinarian on the field and stressed that his players attend classes and graduate.

Robinson is, of course, known for sending more than 200 players into professional football. An all-time Grambling alumni team would consist of such renowned players as Younger, Willie Davis, Buck Buchanan, Willie Brown, James Harris, Sammie White, Charlie Joiner, and Doug Williams.

Robinson is proud of his former players’ accomplishments, but he said there is even more satisfaction in watching them graduate.

“I tell my players that if they play four years and don’t get a degree they’re the loser,” he said. “I’ll never forget what a thrill it was to see Dwight Scales (a former Ram wide receiver) walk across the stage at graduation ceremonies. He stopped in front of me in the faculty section and said, ‘I got what I came to Grambling for, a pro football contract and a degree.’ ”

Robinson is a legend in his own time and he has no regrets about spending his career at the same school.

He has had opportunities to leave Grambling and was even interviewed by Carroll Rosenbloom, the Rams’ late owner, for an assistant coaching job in 1977.

“We had a fine meeting, a serious talk for six hours,” Robinson recalled. “He offered me a job and I said I would have to go back to Grambling and talk to some people. I remember him saying, ‘Is that all you have to worry about?’ ”

Robinson said that Rosenbloom told him that some people would hate him by taking a legendary coach away from Grambling.

However, Robinson decided to stay at Grambling, eventually breaking the record of 323 coaching victories held by Alabama’s Paul (Bear) Bryant.

Robinson seems puzzled, not bitter, that an NFL team hasn’t hired a black head coach as the 21st Century approaches.

“It’s the management and owners,” Robinson said. “You can’t tell a guy how to spend his money, but that’s where it is. Whenever they decide, it will be done.

“But I’m really disappointed that pro basketball and baseball beat pro football to giving a black American an opportunity to have success, or fail.

“I think it’s going to happen, but it’s just bad because it’s such a great game. It really doesn’t need that scar.”