If I were to ask you what coach has the most wins in D1 college football behind Joe Paterno, who would you say? Bear Bryant? Bobby Bowden? Nick Saban? You would be wrong with all three.
That's because the answer would be Eddie Robinson. Who is Eddie Robinson you ask? Well considering last Saturday was the Celebration Bowl, a.k.a the game to decide the black college football champion, what better time then to tell you now.
Eddie Robinson was born in Jackson, Louisiana on February 13, 1919. Robinson was the son of a sharecropper and a domestic worker, living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Later Robinson would go on to play quarterback and graduating at Leland College in 1941.
Robinson’s dream job was to become a college football coach but he faced a huge disadvantage. He was an African-american, in the deep south, at the height of Jim Crow discrimination.
This left Robinson with only one choice, to go coach at an black college, and that black college would be Grambling State.
At the time Robinson was only 22 years old and took on a responsibility far beyond what many coaches had to put up with. College football was still far from becoming what it is today in many respects.
Robinson had a much smaller staff and taught both sides of the ball. He mowed his team's field, made sandwiches for the team on away games, even went as far to write articles on his team for the local newspaper.
While Robinson first season at the helm was unsuccessful, he led his team to a 9-0 record in his second season. That year would be just the tip of the iceberg as to what Eddie Robinson would go on to do in his coaching career.
Robinson would coach Grambling for 56 years and would amass a record of 408 wins, with only 165 losses and 15 ties. Victories of his would also include 17 conference championships, nine black college national championships and nine postseason victories in 18 appearances.
Furthermore, Robinson led a program that held his players to a high standard academically and socially. Robinson was also a phenomenal recruiter and developer of talent as he would coach over 200 professional football players, including three hall of famers; Willie Brown, Buck Buchanan, and Charlie Joiner.
Just as Robinson broke barriers, so did his players as he also coached the first black quarterback to start and win a Superbowl, Doug Williams. Williams would win MVP of Superbowl XXII, with the Washington Redskins.
Robinson would at one point have the most wins in D1 college football, which he broke in 1985, until it was broken by Joe Paterno.
Robinson retired after the 1997 season, at the age of 78 and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame the same year.
Robinson developed Alzheimer's late in his life and died on April 3, 2007.
While the average person that watches college football may not know his name, his influence on Grambling, many players, and the college game as a whole are unprecedented.
