Rabalais: Robinson did it his own way

• By SCOTT RABALAIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Apr 5, 2007

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There was nobody like him.

Whether it was the wins, the players he sent to the pros, the electric smile that continued to hoist up those famous jowls well into his later years, you knew when you were in the presence of Eddie Robinson you were in the presence of someone special.

Whatever “it” was, he had it. The touch, the gift, the drive to become a winner.

Whatever it was, he had to earn it. He wasn’t born into privilege. He didn’t get a leg up in the coaching profession because of who his father was. He certainly wasn’t helped by the color of his skin.

He built himself up, and along with him a football program and a tiny historically black college. Without him, both would likely have only a sliver of the fame they possess because of what he accomplished on the football field.

If he ever complained about how hard it was for him, it was lost in the eons of time that spanned his coaching career. He talked always about his pride at being an American. If it seemed quaint and even corny, that he was a man out of his time or certainly not keeping with popular attitudes about patriotism, he didn’t seem to care.

He went his own way — and that way was straight to the top of his profession. By the time he retired he had more wins than Bryant, Paterno, Stagg, Bowden, all of them. Paterno and Bowden would have to average 12 wins a season the next four seasons to catch Robinson and his 408 victories.

I wondered after hearing of his death whether it was more his success or his amiable, never-met-a-stranger persona that drew people to him.

I would like to believe it was the latter. A certain segment is always fawning over athletes and coaches at the top, when they are cranking out championships and wins. But Robinson left the sideline 10 years ago, and his last three seasons were losing ones.

Apparently, something more than trophies and cheers lingered in peoples’ memories of “Coach Rob.” The Advocate set up an electronic book of condolences on our Web site for people to express their feelings about Robinson. By mid-afternoon it was 29 pages thick, with messages literally from coast-to-coast.

“I am proud to say I have officiated two of his football games,” wrote Wayne Otto of Boone, N.C. “He had the most disciplined sideline I have ever seen on a collegiate football field. Parents who sent sons to play football for Eddie Robinson should be very thankful for the experience.”

“He didn’t tell them how to be men,” wrote R.D. Milton of Paris, Texas, “he showed them by living it in front of them. Many young black men learned that they could be successful in life outside of sports and rap music. He made them understand the need for education and that through education they could be doctors, teachers, lawyers and businessmen.

“What a man he was.”