Robinson Era Enters Final Days Grambling Legend Coaches Final Home Game Of 57-Year Career

Eddie Robinson said goodbye to his home fans Saturday the only way he knew. By stalking the sidelines of a stadium named for him. By trying forcefully, desperately, to coax one more record-building victory from his Grambling State Tigers.

He almost did. His team’s 28 second-half points came up just short against North Carolina A&T, 37-35.

Grambling will finish its season Nov. 29 at Southern University. So, after 57 seasons of home games, this was the last Saturday on which the 78-year-old coaching legend would hear, as coach, the thumping drums of the Marching Tigers as the band filed into Robinson Stadium. It was the last time he would make the short jaunt from his modest home - just a tight spiral from campus - to the playing field as the head coach.

He admitted he fought back tears all week. He admitted he was honored that reporters from across the country showed up to see him, even though his team was losing. “If I ever doubted this was the greatest country in the world, I don’t now,” he said.

He did not try to hide how difficult it was for him to say goodbye. Before the game, he was driven to midfield in a white limousine, greeted by dozens of former players and presented with a portrait of him and his wife, Doris, who has been with him at Grambling from the beginning.

“I’m one of the luckiest guys in the world,” said Robinson, who appeared to shiver in the cloudy coldness of the pine woods campus. The wind chill was in the 30s. “I was born in America and able to work in Louisiana at Grambling.

“But I never won a game at Grambling. The guys behind me have done that,” referring to the former Grambling players who were with him for the ceremony.

He has been head coach at this northeast Louisiana outpost since before Pearl Harbor, outlasting 10 U.S. presidents. His tenure put this historically black college on the map. Since 1941, when Robinson took the head job for the salary of $16 a week, he has delivered more than 200 players to the NFL. One of them, James Harris, was the first black to be a regular starting quarterback in the league. Another, Doug Williams, was the first black quarterback to win the Super Bowl.

Robinson’s eyes welled with tears when one of his current players put his arm around him. Silas Payne, a junior receiver, nearly brought the Tigers back Saturday, catching seven passes for 180 yards and four touchdowns - three in the second half.

After Silas’ last TD (on passes from Mike Kornblau), North Carolina A&T recovered an onside kick and ran out the clock.