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College basketball pioneer Will Robinson dead at 96

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

April 29, 2008

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AUBURN HILLS, Mich. - Will Robinson, the first black basketball coach at a Division I college and a Detroit Pistons scout who discovered Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman, died yesterday. He was 96.

Robinson died in a Detroit hospital, Pistons spokesman Matt Dobek said, after having been sick for 15 months and in a nursing home for more than a year.

Robinson broke a racial barrier in the 1970s when he coached Illinois State. He joined the Pistons as a scout in 1976, and the additions of Dumars and Rodman were keys to Detroit's 1989 and 1990 NBA titles. Those teams were coached by Chuck Daly, who took the job after Robinson declined an offer from then general manager Jack McCloskey.

Robinson scouted for the Pistons for 28 years and scouted part-time for the NFL's Detroit Lions for 22 years.

Midway through the 2003-04 season, en route to their third title, the Pistons renamed their locker room the "Will Robinson Locker Room of Champions."

Robinson was inducted into a number of halls of fame, including the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1982. Accolades aside, he took pride in helping more than 300 youngsters attend college on sports scholarships.

"My grandparents raised me," Robinson once told The Detroit News. "Sports was a family thing, and I coached that way - whether a kid needed money, clothing, a place to stay. I put all these things into a family. And [many of] the players who played for me, I got into college."

Born in Wadesboro, N.C., he quarterbacked the Steubenville (Ohio) High football team and finished second in the state high school golf tournament despite not being allowed to play the course at the same time as whites. He won 15 letters in four sports at West Virginia State College before graduating in 1937.

When he was a Lions scout, his top find was Jackson State cornerback Lem Barney, who went on to an NFL Hall of Fame career. As Illinois State coach, 1970-75, his best player was Doug Collins, who was the NBA's No. 1 draft pick in 1973.

Viewing is slated in Detroit on Friday. After the funeral Saturday, there will be a celebration at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History.

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