My first recollection of the Grambling State University campus in 1990 was how run down it looked compared to the other state school just a few miles down the road. Louisiana Tech in Ruston represented itself to the world with manicured lawns, freshly planted flowers and buildings that seemed to sparkle. Grambling on the other hand looked worn out and worn down. At 23 years old, having graduated from another state school just a year previously, I couldn’t understand how two state run institutions could be so vastly different from one another, yet only have six miles of separation! After all, University of Arizona, AS Who, and Northern Arizona all appeared well kept and current. But Grambling and Tech? I didn’t understand why one school looked like it had a lawn service while the other looked like xeriscaping gone horribly wrong. I’m positive my response upon seeing the Grambling campus was “Holy shit, what happened here?” Because I remember one of my friends telling me, “Well, Tech is the white school.”

Seriously? Didn’t anyone tell the state legislators that it’s 1990? How could they let this happen? How could they sit and let this disparity in their state university system exist? Easy, explained my car companion, “They blame the alumni, claiming Grambling alums don’t donate to their school while Tech alumni donate big bucks for upkeep.” As we drove the highway home to Shreveport/Bossier-passing the David Duke campaign billboards along the roadside, I felt as if our car had become a time machine and it was quite possible these two universities were stuck in 1901.

I was therefore floored when I found out that Louisiana legislators supported the opening of the Eddie G. Robinson Museum right on the campus of GSU and approved an unprecedented 3.3 million dollars be allocated to make the museum a state project. And the museum opened only three years after Eddie Robinson passed away. That’s fast in Louisiana, and especially fast for Grambling.

Those of us who graduated from GSU understand the college began as the North Louisiana Agricultural and Industrial School and boasted 500 students. Though it enrolls 10,000 students presently, when I was there in the early nineties it still operated as if it only had about 500 students. Nothing moved quickly, almost everything on campus was still completed face to face, not electronically. I remember when I was getting my paperwork together to graduate, I had to wait three hours for a staff member to return from lunch to sign off that I had never lived in the dorm because “She’s the only one who signs that paper.” I’ll admit, when I first arrived on campus this kind of thing drove me crazy, but after being a Grambling student, I just learned to bring along a book.

But this type of educational experience was pure Grambling. Despite the slow pace and the low tech operation my professors cared about me in ways I couldn’t imagine at any other university, even calling me at home to check on me when I was sick and missed class! On the day of my graduation the Grambling Marching Band circled around all of the graduates and played a special performance just for us. This send- off put into motion the school motto “Where everybody is somebody” and encouraged us all to “Go and be that somebody we’ve cultivated, march to your beat, have integrity and represent!” Coach Rob lived and breathed this message to his players.

Eddie Robinson played it that way too, only his instrument was his 57-year coaching career at Grambling. While he was most famous for his football record of 408 wins, he initially began his career at Grambling coaching men’s and women’s basketball. At least 200 of the football players Robinson coached during his tenure went on to the NFL. Coach Rob, as he was known on campus, was a different breed of coach. He not only cared about how his players performed on the field, he was invested in seeing them succeed academically. Eighty percent of his players went on to graduate from college, and he promised parents their sons would come out of Grambling and be productive young men. Coach Rob could have gone on to be an NFL coach, but he chose to remain at Grambling. He is oft quoted as saying, “I have one wife and one job.”

And now he has one helluva history and a museum to house it.

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