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Coaching legend Robinson dies at 88 April 4: Eddie Robinson, the longtime Grambling coach who transformed a small, black college into a football powerhouse, has died at 88. Chris Mycoskie reports.

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Robinson began his storied career at Grambling with no paid assistants, no groundskeepers, no trainers and little in the way of equipment. He lined the field himself and fixed lunchmeat sandwiches for road trips because the players could not eat in the “white only” restaurants of the South.

Somehow, he never seemed bitter when recalling these experiences.

“The best way to enjoy life in America is to first be an American, and I don’t think you have to be white to do so,” Robinson said. “Blacks have had a hard time, but not many Americans haven’t.”

In 1968, refusing to be tied to a tiny home stadium on a hard-to-reach campus, Robinson took Grambling’s football show on the road, playing at some very famous addresses, including Yankee Stadium.

Jerry Izenberg, the sports columnist emeritus at the Star-Ledger of Newark and a close friend of Robinson since 1963, said the coach was an inspiration in the deep South.

“People look at black pride in America and sports’ impact on it,” Izenberg said. “In the major cities it took off the first time Jackie Robinson stole home. In the deep South, it started with Eddie Robinson, who took a small college in northern Louisiana with little or no funds and sent the first black to the pros and made everyone look at him and Grambling.”

That same year, Howard Cosell and Izenberg produced the documentary, “Grambling College: 100 Yards to Glory,” Robinson became vice president of the NAIA and all three major television networks carried special programming on Grambling football.

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A year later, Grambling played before 277,209 paying customers in 11 games, despite a home field that seated just 13,000.

The National Football Foundation honored Robinson in 1992 with its Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football Award. When he retired, the organization inducted him into the College Football Hall of Fame. Also in 1997, foundation board member and New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner endowed one of the foundation’s national scholar-athlete awards in Robinson’s name with a $300,000 gift.

Robinson is survived by his wife, Doris, son Eddie Robinson Jr., daughter Lillian Rose Robinson, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

His body will lie in state in the rotunda of the state capitol on Monday. The funeral will be at the new assembly center at Grambling on Wednesday. Burial will be at Memorial Cemetery in Grambling.

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