Posted on 04/04/2007 5:41:53 AM PDT by Condor 63
RUSTON, La. — Eddie Robinson, who sent more than 200 players to the NFL and won 408 games during a 57-year career, has died.
He was 88.
Super Bowl MVP quarterback Doug Williams, one of Robinson's former players, said the former Grambling State University coach died about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday. Robinson had been admitted to Lincoln General Hospital on Tuesday afternoon.
"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."
Robinson's was a career that spanned 11 presidents, several wars and the civil-rights movement.
His older records were what people remembered: in 57 years, Robinson set the standard for victories, going 408-165-15.
"The real record I have set for over 50 years is the fact that I have had one job and one wife," Robinson said.
Robinson and his wife, Doris, had two children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
That said, the best part of South Western Athletic Conference (SWAC) games, IMO, is the halftime show.
Robinson said he tried to coach each player as if he wanted him to marry his daughter.
When he began his career, Robinson had no paid assistants, no groundskeepers, no trainers and little in the way of equipment. He had to line the field himself and fix lunchmeat sandwiches for road trips because the players could not eat in the "white only" restaurants of the South.
He was not bitter, however. "The best way to enjoy life in America is to first be an American, and I don't think you have to be white to do so," Robinson said. "Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven't."
Robinson said he tried to teach his players about opportunity.
"The framers of this Constitution, now they did some things," Robinson would say. "If you aren't lazy, they fixed it for you. You've got to understand the system. It's just like in football, if you don't understand the system, you haven't got a chance."
Neither of Robinson's parents graduated from high school — he was the son of a cotton sharecropper and a domestic worker — and they encouraged him to stay in school and get a college degree.
Sad day for college football..
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