Coach Eddie Robinson

No college football coach has sent more players to the
NFL than Coach Eddie Robinson. That's a fete that
should stand for a very long time. But the man also
stood for civil rights. Read the article below and feel
free to offer up your comments on this college football
legend.


Eddie Robinson, the record-setting coach who turned Grambling State University into a nationally recognized football power, ushered more than 200 players into the National Football League and largely realized his vision of transforming the Louisiana school into the Notre Dame of historically black colleges, has died. He was 88. Robinson, who for nearly two decades held college football's record for most victories, died Tuesday night at Northern Louisiana Medical Center in Ruston, La., the university announced.

The cause of death was not specified, but he had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease.Starting in 1941 at age 22, Robinson coached at Grambling for 57 seasons. He had a career mark of 408-165-15 when he was forced to retire in 1997.His nearly six-decade tenure at Grambling spanned dramatic social change. Robinson navigated his teams through Jim Crow laws in the 1940s and the civil rights movement, and his career ended after the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of the AIDS epidemic and the beginning of the Internet boom. His 408 wins stood as the most by a football coach at any collegiate level until November 2003, when John Gagliardi topped Robinson by notching his 409th victory for St. John's, a Division III school in Minnesota.

Robinson recorded his 324th career win when his team defeated Prairie View A&M on Oct. 5, 1985. That victory allowed him to surpass Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant to become college football's winningest coach"There is no question that Eddie Robinson was a figure that was larger than life for most African American young men of that era," said University of Washington Coach Tyrone Willingham, one of five black head coaches in Division IA during the 2006 college football season. "At that time, Grambling was The Program and Eddie Robinson was The Man…. He stood for all the right things."At the peak of his power, Robinson proudly paraded his Tiger teams around the country on "barnstorming" tours, a Deep South version of Notre Dame's Fighting Irish football team.

The school hired a public relations man to orchestrate a national publicity campaign as Grambling scheduled games against other historically black schools in venues that included Yankee Stadium, the Rose Bowl and the Los Angeles Coliseum.Robinson's effect on college football was profound. His Grambling teams won nine National Black College championships and 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference titles and had only eight losing seasons. In 1949, Grambling star Paul "Tank" Younger joined the Los Angeles Rams, becoming the first player from a historically black college to sign with an NFL team.

Four former players — Buck Buchanan, Willis Davis, Willie Brown and Charlie Joiner — are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.At one point in the early 1970s, there were 43 former Grambling players in NFL training camps.On Jan. 31, 1988, with Robinson seated in the stands at San Diego's Jack Murphy Stadium, former Grambling star quarterback Doug Williams led the Washington Redskins to a win over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXII. Williams, the first African American quarterback to play in a Super Bowl, threw four touchdown passes and was named the game's most valuable player."For the Grambling family, this is a very emotional time," Williams said Wednesday. "But I'm thinking about Eddie Robinson the man, not in today-time, but in the day and what he meant to me and to so many people."





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