April 5, 2007

Eddie Robinson was sitting behind a folding table in a Jackson hotel ballroom. It was Southwestern Athletic Conference Media Days in 1997, what would become Robinson’s final year as Grambling State’s head football coach.

With a smattering of press guides spread across the table, the big man with the soft voice sat alone. Other coaches at other tables spoke to the various reporters in attendance.

Robinson folded his hands on the table and waited.

A cub reporter fresh out of college approached the man and sheepishly asked for a few minutes.

It wasn’t as much intimidation as being awestruck, something I prided myself on not being. I was close friends with Mel Allen, the greatest baseball announcer of them all. I’ve met ballplayers, politicians and the former three-term governor of New York used to prune our grape leaves back home.

So seeing &#8220celebrities” really is no big deal.

Yet approaching the gray-haired Robinson caused difficulties. I was supposed to be there. I was a member of the media. Yet my hands trembled when I sat down.

This man before me had won, at the time, 82 more games than the great Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Robinson began coaching two years before my dad took his first breath.

Now I was face-to-face with the legend.

I stuttered and stammered, trying to ask the million-dollar question, ears pinned on every word he said.

I had no outlet, no other reporters to turn to when the questions I wanted to ask flew from my head.

Ask me one question I asked the man and I’ll say, &#8220I haven’t a clue.”

They couldn’t have been too outlandish, for Robinson answered every question with patience and a kind smile.

He retired following that season, one that saw the team win three games for the second consecutive season. His health began failing. Ultimately, he suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, leaving him oblivious to his surroundings.

He said once when asked about his remarkable win total that the two records he cherished most were spending 50 years with the same school and the same wife. Robinson died on Tuesday night at age 88.

Robinson transformed a tiny rural college in North Louisiana into one of the most respected college football programs in America. He did it during a time of great turmoil for blacks in the South. He recalled later that one of his functions was to make sandwiches for his team on road trips because his players were not allowed to eat in whites-only restaurants.

Since Robinson’s retirement, Grambling has had a pipeline to Vicksburg High. The Gators routinely send players to Grambling, and even though Robinson is long gone, his presence around the campus will be there forever.

I never once believed that the one interview I did with Robinson would stay with him any longer than the few minutes I sat with him.

Ten years later, though, the meeting has an indelible mark on me, and likely will forever.