by Karl E. McDonald Special to the BCSP
This Sunday (6:30 p.m. ET), the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks
will meet at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara,California after punching their tickets to Super Bowl LX with wins in the NFC and AFC conference championship games respectively.
Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, should be congratulated for
taking his team back to the big game after previously dominating the NFL Super Bowl for many years. Kraft has seen his team win six Super Bowls and play in four others – more than any owner in NFL history. This year’s appearance is the Patriot’s 12th in the Super Bowl (one before Kraft became owner).
In 2024, the late legendary Grambling Coach Eddie Robinson and Kraft were
named as two of the 25 candidates selected for potential induction into the 2025 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the contributor category. Kraft progressed to become one of nine semifinalists for that same class and was
a finalist for the 2026 class but has not been selected. His former coach, Bill Belichick, who guided the Patriots to all six Super Bowl titles, was controversially also not selected this year in his first year of eligibility.
Also, in 2024, Tom Brady, the former New Patriots seven-time Super Bowl championship quarterback and arguably pro football’s greatest winner, became part owner of the Las Vegas Raiders which now houses the Al Davis/ Eddie Robinson Leadership Academy that was established in 2020.
Eddie Robinson and the Super Bowl
Robinson, Grambling’s players, and its band have historically been a part of the NFL Super Bowl. When Robinson retired in 1997, Paul Tagliabue, the then NFL Commissioner, honored Robinson by inviting him to participate in Superbowl XXXII’s honorary coin toss ceremony. Grambling great and Super Bowl MVP Doug Williams and Pro Football Hall of Fame Coach Joe Gibbs joined Coach Robinson in the ceremony.
When Robinson and Williams participated in that coin toss, they became the second and third Grambling greats who were honored to take part in the ceremony. Grambling standout and Pro Football Hall of Famer, Willie Davis,
proceeded them in serving as an honorary coin toss participant in Super Bowl XXI. Davis also participated in the coin toss for Super Bowl I on January 15, 1967 as a co-captain of the Vince Lombardi led Green Bay Packers.
Robinson has also coached players who have been on rosters of almost all 32
NFL teams, including current Super Bowl participants, the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks. Former Grambling players J. D. Garrett and Carlos Pennywell played for the Patriots and Richard Harris played for the Seahawks.
Grambling’s historic world-famous Marching Band has performed in at least six
Super Bowls, including Super Bowls I and II.
Robinson, a college and pro football pioneer
Coach Robinson is a college and pro football pioneer who effectively operated
at the intersection of both college and pro football. Robinson, who retired as the
winningest coach in college football history and led college football in all-time coaching wins for nearly two decades and became the first college football coach to reach and surpass the 400-coaching wins plateau, also made historic marks on the game of pro football.
During Robinson’s 57-year career as a college football coach, he trained the first
player from a historically black college to enter the NFL, Paul “Tank” Younger; the first African American player to be drafted number one overall in a pro football draft, Junious “Buck” Buchanan; the first African American quarterback to start a season as QB-1 on an NFL team, James “Shack” Harris; and the
first African American quarterback to start and win an NFL Super Bowl, Doug Williams.
Robinson also coached and trained over 200 pro football players, including four Pro Football Hall of Famers: namely, Willie Brown, Willie Davis, Junious “Buck”
Buchanan and Charlie Joiner, with Brown and Davis included in the NFL’s top 100 players of all-time.
Robinson and the Pro Football Hall of Fame
Finally, Coach Robinson and Grambling’s rich tradition and historic collaboration with pro football and its showcase game, the Super Bowl, is singular in nature. The legendary coach’s Super Bowl connections plus his numerous other contributions to the great game of pro football strongly supports the case that
Robinson deserves a place in Canton, Ohio’s Pro Football Hall of Fame.