AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- Will Robinson, the first black basketball coach at a Division I school and a Detroit Pistons scout who discovered Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman, died Monday. He was 96.
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| Robinson coached Doug Collins at Illinois St. (AP) |
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 championships. Those teams were coached by Chuck Daly, who took the job after Robinson declined former general manager Jack McCloskey's offer.
"Will Robinson was truly a legend and will be missed dearly," Dumars said. "He was a huge inspiration for me and so many others. He was simply the best."
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."
"He's someone that's going to be missed, not only by the Pistons but by the City of Detroit," Pistons coach Flip Saunders said.
"He was a civil rights pioneer," said Pistons trainer Mike Abdenour, hired by the franchise in the mid-1970s. "He didn't let the color of his skin deter him from his dreams.
"I think it's really ironic that the NAACP had a big event here last night and Will passed away the next day," he said. The NAACP's annual Fight for Freedom Fund Dinner was Sunday in Detroit.
Robinson joined Spencer Haywood in a successful legal challenge to the NBA's ban on underclassmen. Haywood, a member of Robinson's Detroit Pershing 1967 state championship high school team, left the University of Detroit to sign with the ABA's Denver Rockets.
The 1967 Pershing team featured not only Haywood but four others who went on to play professional sports: Ralph Simpson (ABA, NBA), Glen Doughty and Paul Seal (NFL) and Marvin Lane (baseball).
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. Some are doctors. Some are lawyers."
