Robinson Draws Raves Before First Game : Football: Former Ram coach will make debut today as analyst on World League telecast.

John Robinson won’t debut as an analyst on World League cable telecasts until today, but he has already gotten rave reviews.

“USA has come across a real gem,” said Ted Robinson, who will call the 5 p.m. game between the Sacramento Surge and the Birmingham Fire along with the former Ram and USC coach. “There’s so much potential there. John is going to be a very capable analyst if that is the avenue he wants to pursue.”

The Robinsons, no relation, did a practice broadcast last week off a tape of last season’s Miami Dolphins-Kansas City Chiefs playoff game, and Ted Robinson came away most impressed with John Robinson’s work.

“He improved so much in that session it was mind-boggling,” Ted Robinson said. “He has a lot of the qualities (that) his boyhood friend John Madden (has). Once the microphone is open, his love for the game and passion for it shows. He’s very animated and enthusiastic. What he really learned in the practice game is trying to speak about the game from a fan’s viewpoint as opposed to looking at the game from the coaches’ viewpoint.”

John Robinson said one of his goals as an announcer will be to “make the game appear human to people.”

“Sometime people get on there and want to make it into science or brain surgery and it’s not that,” Robinson said. “There’s a lot of humor and a lot of fun at every level and I hope I can convey that as well as make it interesting and help the person watching. It’s deadly when you become over-technical or over-sophisticated. Viewers almost always resent that.”

Robinson considers his new job an exciting opportunity and is relishing a chance at age 56 to learn a new profession.

“The World League is new and so there are a lot of people willing to take risks, so I’ll fit in with that,” Robinson said.

Robinson said he is not nervous about making his debut but realizes he will have to get familiar with both the broadcasting equipment involved and the 72 players on Birmingham’s and Sacramento’s rosters.

“There are a lot of unfamiliar names I’m trying to learn,” Robinson said earlier in the week. ‘You don’t look down there and see Dan Marino running around.”

Instead of Marino, quarterbacks David Archer (Sacramento) and Mike Norseth (Birmingham) will be running around Hornet Field in Sacramento. One player Robinson is familiar with is Sacramento defensive end George Bethune, who spent the 1989 and 1990 seasons with the Rams.

Another player known to area fans is Mike Pringle, the former Cal State Fullerton standout running back, now with the Surge after being cut by Atlanta last season.

Gordon Beck, USA’s executive producer for sports, had sought to hire Robinson a season ago as an analyst. The thought was he could simultaneously coach and announce. The network had signed NFL quarterbacks Boomer Esiason, Warren Moon and Dan Marino as analysts and figured an active coach could also fit off-season announcing into his schedule.

But after one conversation, Robinson, who showed initial interest, according to Beck, declined, citing the need to prepare for the NFL draft and season.

With the conflicts removed by Robinson’s resignation from the Rams, the network was “delighted” he could become part of its telecasts, Beck said.

“We think he will add another element of both insight and entertainment,” Beck said.

Robinson will work eight telecasts, including a semifinal playoff game May 30.