The saddest part of ex-Grambling head coach Eddie Robinson’s passing is that he can only die this one day.

If it wasn’t for Eddie Robinson dying today there would be no mention of his 408 victories. Remember, it was Robinson who broke Bear Bryant’s college football equivalent of Babe Ruth’s home run record, the most wins by an NCAA football coach.

Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno coach in the equivalent of the steroids era of collegiate football; at least 11 games played per season and most time 12 or 13; gimme or near-gimme wins the first two or three weeks of every season, and annual schedules with eight games at home. Yet, every major newspaper from USA Today to the San Diego Union-Tribune is quick to mention that John Gagliardi of St. John’s, Minn., passed Robinson and has 443 wins - in the “interest of fairness,” of course.

But, as once Robinson said:

“The real record I have set for over 50 years is the fact that I have had one job and one wife.”

If it wasn’t for Eddie Robinson’s passing no one would know that over 200 of his charges played in the NFL and four Buck Buchannon, Willie Davis, Willie Brown, and Charlie Joyner have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Today James Harris, vice president of player personnel for the Jacksonville Jaguars and former Grambling and NFL quarterback -the first Black QB to start an NFL playoff game - would be in his office quietly thinking about the upcoming draft - unless one of his players was arrested. And today Doug Williams would be quietly going about his day instead of being interviewed by every major sports media outlet in the U.S.

If Eddie Robinson was alive today no one would know that in 1968 Grambling University played football on every major television network. No one would know that Grambling and Robinson were the subjects of a Howard Cosell documentary, 100 Yards to Glory.

If Eddie Robinson was only ill his sickness would be mentioned in passing and no one would know that of the more than 4500 student athletes Robinson coached, 85% graduated from college. No one would know that in his second season as a head coach his Grambling team was a perfect 9-0 and was not scored upon, a record never duplicated by any college team, anywhere.

Despite his monumental success as a head football coach, Robinson was only concerned about the future welfare of his players. This is what Eddie Robinson wanted the world to know:

“I tended to want to bring things out in a football player as a student. We were blessed to have some good football players, but when you graduate people, they seem to be good people. They get a degree, and they can go out and handle things.”

It is said that Robinson coached every athlete as if he wanted him to marry his daughter.

If Eddie Robinson was alive today the only news we would hear about football players would be how it is imperative that the NFL make an example of Pacman Jones and perhaps suspend him for the season; sports media driving public sentiment. All we would hear is how Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chris Henry begged NFL commissioner Roger Goddell not to be shelved. And we would be lied to and told that it was the players who initiated this non-solution to a problem that affects only 2% of all NFL players.

If not for Eddie Robinson’s passing today we would have no clue that there are positive Black role models in football, or sports, for that matter. The big news elsewhere is the patently racist rhetoric that the paucity of Black baseball players is because of Barry Bonds and his court-induced involvement in the steroids scandal that rules the day.

The fact is that there are positive role Black models on every team on every sideline, on every bench, and in every dugout of every collegiate and professional football, basketball, and baseball program and team in America. The problem is that it is too easy to focus on some malaprop, to play on the existing ingrained racism and racial fears this bastion of “tolerance” called the United States supports and has a vested interest in fostering.

But if you asked any sports media outlet, no matter how large or small, why Black athletes are so rarely shown in a positive light, they’d smile weakly, sheepishly, and guiltily. They’d shrug their shoulders and say, ‘We’d love to, but that’s not what the public wants. Positive doesn’t sell.’ Sure, go tell it on the mountain.

If only Eddie Robinson could die every day.

D.K. Wilson is a freelance writer based in Vermont