General
John Robinson, Inspiring Coach of U.S.C. and L.A. Rams, Dies at 89
His Trojans won four Rose Bowls during his two stints at Southern California and shared one national championship. He took the Rams to two conference championships.
John Robinson, the affable head coach who guided the University of Southern California football team to four Rose Bowl victories and one national championship and took the Los Angeles Rams to the brink of two Super Bowls, died on Monday in Baton Rouge, La. He was 89.
U.S.C. said the cause was complications of pneumonia.
Robinson had a reputation as a players’ coach who didn’t take himself seriously in his 27 years leading the U.S.C. Trojans, the Rams and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Rebels.
Jim Murray, a sports columnist for The Los Angeles Times, described Robinson as nothing like old school coaches who were remote or whose ill-temper put the fear of God in players.
“Football coaches tend to be Machiavellian in character,” Murray wrote in 1982, “but Robinson was more like a country doctor healing the sick in exchange for fresh eggs.”
Vince Newsome, a Rams safety, told The New York Times in 1988: “The one thing about him that has never changed is he can motivate anybody, even when you don’t understand how he’s doing it. He’s blessed with being able to talk to a guy from his own experience. He can pick you up out of your own personal funk.”
In the first of his two stints as coach of the Trojans, Robinson succeeded John McKay in 1976 and won the Rose Bowl after that regular season, as he did again after the 1978 and 1979 seasons.
