Basketball pioneer, scout Will Robinson dies at 96
In a photo provided by the Detroit Pistons, Isiah Thomas, president of the New York Knicks, left, stands with Detroit basketball legend Will Robinson as he is honored by the Detroit Pistons on Dec. 2, 2005, in Auburn Hills, Mich. Robinson, who was the fir Detroit Pistons, The Associated Press
April 29, 2008
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.
Robinson died in a nursing home in Harper Woods, Mich., Pistons spokesman Matt Dobek said. Robinson had been sick for 15 months and in a nursing home for more than a year, Dobek added.
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.
“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.
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“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.
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.
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.”
Born in Wadesboro, N.C., Robinson 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.
While scouting for the Lions, Robinson scoured black colleges in the South for talent.
He coached the Illinois State basketball team from 1970-75.
Associated Press Writer Jim Irwin contributed to this report
