[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 155 (Friday, November 7, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12039-S12040]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               COACH EDDIE ROBINSON: A TRUE AMERICAN HERO

 Mr. BREAUX. Mr. President, the conclusion of the 1998 football 
season will mark the end of the most extraordinary and successful 
coaching career in college football history. Eddie Robinson of 
Grambling State University, in my home State of Louisiana, will retire 
as that school's head coach after 56 amazing years in that position. 
Coach Robinson enters retirement at the pinnacle of his profession, 
holding the record as the most successful college football coach in 
history with an impressive 408 victories and only 162 losses to his 
credit.
  Fifty-six years ago, when Coach Robinson came to what was then 
Louisiana Negro Normal, the school's formative

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football program rested entirely on his shoulders. Unlike college 
coaches of today, who are often awarded large contracts and lucrative 
television deals, Coach Robinson had to build his program from the 
ground up--literally. During prep basketball games, the new coach sold 
hamburgers so that he could afford to rent a bulldozer that could clear 
a field on which his team could practice and play. Once, he persuaded 
the members of his team to pick cotton so that a farmer's son, who 
happened to be the school's top running back, could join the team.
  In subsequent years, Coach Robinson built Grambling football into one 
of the most successful and well-known football programs in the Nation. 
Today, Coach Robinson and his Grambling Tigers are household names 
across the country. Throughout the National Football League, the team 
that Eddie built is known as one the best proving grounds for the NFL 
stars of the future. More than 300 of his players have gone on to 
careers in professional football.
  In 1971 alone, 43 former Grambling players were in NFL training 
camps. Four of his players--Willie Brown, Willie Davis, Charlie Joiner, 
and Buck Buchanan--are members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And 
another former player, Doug Williams, became the first black 
quarterback to win a Super Bowl.
  Mr. President, these are some of the accomplishments of Coach 
Robinson's extraordinary career. But they don't tell the whole story of 
the amazing life of this son of a former sharecropper. That is because 
it is Coach Robinson's example off the football field that has proved 
just as inspirational.
  As a devoted husband and father and an exemplary citizen, Eddie 
Robinson symbolizes what is best about our country. As those of us who 
know him can attest, he is the very embodiment of the values of 
integrity, dignity, loyalty, humility, dedication, and excellence that 
most Americans still wish for their children. In a day and time when 
heroes are few and far between, I suggest that the young people of 
America look no further than Grambling State University for a true 
American hero named Eddie Robinson--a hero not only because of his 
success on the football field, but because of his winning attitude 
toward life and the extraordinary content of his character.
  I know that I speak for every Member of this body when I congratulate 
Coach Robinson for his many outstanding accomplishments on and off the 
football field. We wish he and his family every success and happiness 
in this new and exciting phase of their lives. 

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