Thank God for Eddie Robinson

On Tuesday, the world lost one of the most important sports figures of the twentieth century, Eddie Robinson. Eddie Robinson coached Grambling State University from 1941 to 1997, and when he retired, he was the winningest football coach in NCAA history, having won a staggering 408 games. In 57 years as a head coach, Robinson only had 8 losing seasons. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1997.

Despite having coached his entire career at Grambling State, a historically black college, Robinson should also be remembered for his quiet contribution in helping to fully integrate the National Football League. It’s somewhat ironic that Eddie Robinson, a man whose name was unfamiliar to most sports fans in the U.S., died in the same month that we remember another Robinson, Jackie Robinson, for breaking the race barrier in Major League Baseball. Yet it’s also ironic that Major League Baseball gets so much attention for integrating when the National Football League, and the Los Angeles Rams in particular, beat them to the punch. In 1946, over a year before Jackie Robinson would walk onto the diamond for the Brooklyn Dodgers, the Rams signed two former UCLA standouts, Kenny Washington and Woody Strode.

So how does Eddie Robinson play into all this history of integration? Robinson was instrumental in making certain that athletes who chose to attend historically black colleges had an opportunity to play in the NFL. In his book, America’s Game: The Story of How Pro Football Captured a Nation, Michael McCambridge describes Robinson’s role in making sure that Grambling State’s Tank Younger, the first NFL player from a historically black college, was successful enough in the NFL.

In July, before Younger left for the Rams’ training camp, Crambling coach Eddie Robinson sat down with him and methodically explained what Younger might expect: a cold shoulder from many of his teammates, late hits and dirty plays from opponents, and likelihood of racial slurs wherever he turned.”You have to let it go in one ear and out the other,” Robinson implored, looking into Younger’s eyes. “You have to make the ball club.”

In this, Robinson was unusually adamant, emphasizing that the stakes went beyond Younger and a professional football career. “Tank, if you go up there and you don’t make it, there’s no telling how long it’ll be before somebody gets a chance,” said Robinson. “They’ll be able to say, ‘We took the best you had to offer, and he wasn’t good enough.’” (57)

When Younger was first scouted by the Rams, full integration was by no means a finished work, and there were only five black athletes in the league. Robinson was certain that black athletes and black colleges depended upon Younger’s success, and he was willing to do whatever he could to help Younger achieve success. McCambridge describes how when Younger arrived at the Rams’ training camp, he struggled to comprehend the seemingly incomprehensible play calls developed by the team’s slightly unbalanced technical adviser, Clark Shaughnessy. To be honest, Younger was probably not alone in finding such jibberish as “Brown Stash Mutt Purple Jack Shuffle Right Wheel Left,” nearly incomprehensible (62). Yet when Younger did struggle early during Camp, it was Robinson who carefully explained the system to Younger over the telephone, and who encouraged the future five time Pro Bowler to endure. In doing so, Robinson paved the way for many other athletes from historically black colleges. So for the next few days, while sports news outlets are reminding us that without Eddie Robinson players like Tank Younger and Doug Williams might never have made it to the NFL, let’s also remember that without Eddie Robinson, players like Walter Payton and Jerry Rice might never have played on Sundays. Shudder the thought. Thank God for Eddie Robinson