Eddie G. Robinson

Legendary Grambling State University Football Coach

Coach Eddie Robinson is probably the most famous and important athletic figure to come from Baton Rouge. For 56 years, Coach Rob, as he is affectionately known, was the head coach at Grambling State University and during that time established himself as the winningest coach in college football history. Robinson retired with a record of 408 wins, 165 losses and 15 ties.

He was born in Jackson, but moved to Baton Rouge at the age of six.  A graduate of McKinley High School (1937), he played quarterback for the legendary coach Reuben S. Turner at Leland College in Baker, LA, where  he earned his Bachelors degree.  He was hired to teach and coach at the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute, now Grambling State University, in 1941.  He went on to earn a Masters degree from the University of Iowa in 1954.   He began his Grambling State career in 1941 and retired in 1997.

Among the “firsts” on his record is the first U.S. Collegiate Football Game (vs. Morgan State University) played in Japan, the Pioneer Bowl in Tokyo 1976.  He had over 300 of his players to participate in professional football team training camps.  Of this number, more than 200 have played on professional teams.  The first black from a historically black university (Grambling) to be drafted and play in the National Football League was Paul “Tank” Younger with the Los Angeles Rams, 1949.  Grambling was admitted to the SWAC in 1959.  Since that time, Coach Rob won or shared conference championships sixteen times, the National Black College Championship three times and participated three times in the NCAA Division I-AA playoffs.

The driving force behind him was his concern for the welfare of the young men and women he taught and coached.  “I feel that coaches have a responsibility to provide a model and to guide their athletes on and off the playing field.”

Source:  “The First Annual South Baton Rouge Black History Recognition Program”- Author – Ms. Helen Turner Rutledge, February 27, 1993

Honors:

The Eddie Robinson Award is given annually to college football's top head coach in Division I-CS. The award was established by The Sports Network in 1987 and is voted upon by the division's sports information directors and selected sports writers who cover the division and sponsored by the Football Writers Association of America.

Links:

• Article from The Advocate, Thursday, April 5, 2007
• Eddie Robinson Award winners

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