Somebody once told me that the best reason to be home at a decent hour is because the only people out after midnight are cops and drunks. Me and my best buddy, Terry “T-bone” Presley, and I were up past the witching hour one night having a late-night breakfast at the Ruston’s Huddle House when I glanced over at the stool next to me and sitting there having a cup of coffee was Eddie Robinson.
That’s right, Glum Eddie, the legendary Grambling coach. I felt like I was sitting next to Shoeless Joe Jackson or some other ghost. I didn’t know for sure if he was real or that I should speak to him.
I last time I saw Coach Rob was when I was working my way through Tech as a jailer for the Lincoln Parish Sheriff’s Office. Coach Robinson and George Steinbrenner, the owner of the New York Yankees, were close friends and Coach Rob invited the team up during spring training to play the Grambling Tigers.
Some of us were asked to work game security. I self-assigned myself to the Yankee dugout and got to meet Micky Rivers, Reggie Jackson, “Louisiana Lightning” Ron Guidry, Bucky Dent, Willie Randolph, and Cliff Johnson.
Reggie Jackson did something that day that I thought was kinda cool. He went to bat against this kid pitcher from Grambling. The kid was staring at Reggie like pitchers do before they throw their first pitch. I guess it finally dawned on him who he was about to pitch to and he just backed off the mound with a “Whoa!” look on his face. Even Reggie stepped out the batter’s box and laughed.
Later in the game Reggie smacked a ball out to deep center field. The Grambling Tiger centerfielder went back as far as he could and caught the ball right at the fence. When Reggie came back and sat down in the dugout, somebody said the fans REALLY wanted to see him knock one out of the ballpark. Reggie said, “Nah, that’s exactly what they came here to see – one of their own catching the ball BEFORE it went over the fence.”
Anyway, back to my legendary sighting. I finally got up enough nerve to introduce myself to the coach with the most football wins in history. The ghost shook my hand and said, “Nice to meet you.” It was 2 o’clock in the morning and although he’d forgotten more than I ever knew about football, I thought I’d ask the coach some questions:
Me: Coach, when you recruit black players nowadays, do you ever suggest to them that they really belong in an all-black college?
Coach: No, I don’t feel I have a right to do that. We fought hard to get into those white schools. Now I’m supposed to tell them that now that they can get in, they should come to Grambling because they’re black? No, that never made much sense to me.
Me: Do you value size or speed more in a football player?
Coach: Definitely speed. You know a rabbit can’t hurt you, but you got to catch him to kill him! Speed, definitely speed.
I could have talked to Eddie Robinson all night but I could tell that buddy Presley was starting to feel a lot like a potted plant, so I shook hands with the coach, asked T-Bone to get the check, and we were on our way.
But it was good that night to find out there are some good sober people out after midnight and that occasionally, one of them is a living legend.
Randy lives in Minden. He can be reached at planorand@yahoo.com.