Former Dallas Cowboys cornerback Everson Walls could have chosen to look upon the passing of legendary Grambling State University coach Eddie Robinson with sadness.
Walls was one of more than 200 players whom Robinson sent to the NFL during nearly 60 years at the predominantly black school in northern Louisiana.
Robinson, who died late Tuesday night at the age of 88, turned tiny Grambling into a football power and an international icon.
For that alone, his death was a sad day for football, Grambling and America, Walls said.
But Walls said choosing to reflect on his passing rather than cherishing the life he lived would do no justice to the man Robinson taught him to be and the man Eddie Robinson was.
“There will never be another one like him,” Walls said. “He put Grambling on the map and made it a football powerhouse. But I never thought he got the respect he deserved.”
Thanks to Robinson’s tutoring, Walls went on to become a black college All-America player, all-pro with the Cowboys and a Super Bowl champion with the New York Giants.
“He helped build me as a player and person,” Walls said. “He helped me articulate my thoughts. He meant everything to me and my career.”
A month ago, Walls donated a kidney to former Cowboys teammate Ron Springs – an act the former cornerback said he might never have considered had it not been for Robinson’s influence.
“We’re good friends, but if it hadn’t been for Coach Rob, I wouldn’t have had the mind-set to help him,” Walls said.
Robinson once said he tried to coach each player as if he wanted him to marry his daughter.
“He taught us how to be men,” Walls said. “He would go through the dorm with a cow bell not to just wake his players up for practice, but to go to class and to go to church.”
“To me he was the Martin Luther King of football. I have never seen him angry, derogatory toward any opponent or team that he played against. As a matter of fact, he stayed with the tradition. He always wore a suit, a necktie and a coat to ballgames. He was very sophisticated. He carried the attitude that he loved everybody.”
– W.C. Gordon, former Jackson State coach
