Eddie Robinson

At 88 years old, Eddie Robinson physical status not available right now. We will update Eddie Robinson's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Career

Robinson had aspired to be a college football coach, but he was denied admission because he was black in Jim Crow days. He could only attend a traditional all-black academy, and those were all well staffed. Robinson, who earned his bachelor's degree at Leland, returned to Baton Rouge and worked at a feed mill for 25 cents an hour. He learned that the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute, now Grambling State University, was looking for a new football coach a few years ago. Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones, the school's president and baseball coach, recruited him for the position and baseball coach.

The 22-year-old Robinson, a 1941 graduate of Louisiana Normal, assumed his position as head football coach. The days of assistant coaches, offensive and defensive coordinators, and special teams were long ago, so Robinson did everything: taught offense and defense, mowed the football field, cut sandwiches for the team, taped his players' sore joints, and even wrote game reports for the newspaper. His players were held to stringent measures of personal conduct and academic achievement. In his first year as an infant, the Tigers were 3–5-1, but the following season — during which he recruited new players and dismissed those who didn't live up to his hopes — was an exciting 9-0 season.

Due to World War II, Louisiana Normal did not field a team in 1943 or 1944. Robinson returned to work in 1945 and then stayed at the college, which became Grambling State University in 1946 and Grambling State University in 1973, before his retirement in 1997.

More than 200 of his players went on to compete in the National Football League, American Football League, and the Canadian Football League, respectively. Robinson coached three AFL players who would be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame: Buck Buchanan of the Kansas City Chiefs; Willie Brown of the Oakland Raiders; and Charlie Joiner of San Diego. James Harris, a member of the Buffalo Bills, became the first black quarterback in modern Pro Football history to play in a season opener. Willie Davis, the Packers' defensive end and Hall of Famer, and the Super Bowl XII MVP, Redskins quarterback Doug Williams, who would eventually replace Robinson as Grambling's head coach in 1998, also served as the Packers' head coach.

Robinson has had 45 winning seasons in his tenure as a coach, including winning or sharing 17 Southwestern Athletic Conference championships and nine black college football national championships. In his three NCAA playoff appearances, he was winless.

Robinson's 1985 win over Grambling State brought him unprecedented fame. Any observers feared that the coach would be the object of white hatred, much as Henry Aaron did when he broke Babe Ruth's home run record. Robinson, on the contrary, said he did not receive a single hate letter from the legion of southern fans who adored Bear Bryant. Robinson said, "I grew up in the South," when asked if his reputation was somehow marred by the fact that his team played the bulk of his games against Division I-AA caliber competition. I was told how to enroll in elementary school, where to attend junior high school, and where to attend high school. When I became a coach, I was told who I could recruit, who I should play, where I could play, and when I could play. "I did what I could within the framework." He said that his faith had always been "whatever league you're in, whatever level you're in, and whatever level you're in."

Eddie Robinson played many positions other than football coach, including teaching at Grambling High School and coaching the girls basketball team during World War II. His girls team lost the state championship by a single point. He also coached boys basketball, baseball, directed the band, and was in charge of the cheerleaders, with a budget of $46.

Robinson had the pick of the majority of Louisiana's outstanding black high school football players, often segregating them with Southern, explaining why the match between the two teams was a major in-state rivalry long before it was moved to New Orleans as the Bayou Classic in 1974. Since integration, he was able to have his success for a long time, but he had only one losing season between 1960 and 1990. However, pressure has risen for the now 78-year-old coach after three years of losing seasons in the mid-1990s. In the Grambling State press book, fellow college coach Joe Paterno says, "No one has ever done or ever will do what Eddie Robinson has done for the game... No one has ever done or will do what Eddie Robinson has done for the game...Our profession will never, ever will honor Eddie Robinson for what he has done for the country and the game."

Grambling was planning to fire him in mid-season, according to 1997 news. Public outcry has erupted, with condemnation from Louisiana elected officials, including then-Gov. Grambling's services will be retained through the remainder of the season, according to Mike Foster — a football coach.

After his retirement, Robinson developed Alzheimer's disease. After being admitted earlier in the day, he died on April 3, 2007, at Lincoln General Hospital in Ruston, Louisiana.

Eddie, Jr., and Lillian Rose Robinson, Robinson and his wife, Doris, who died at the age of ninety-six in September 2015, had two children; Doris, Jr., and Lillian Rose Robinson.

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