'John Robinson was hands down my all-time favorite head coach'

USC coach John Robinson is all smiles after an overtime win over Notre Dame.

Staff Writer

Nov. 12, 2024 3 AM PT

The high school star from San Diego will never forget the night John Robinson rolled up to recruit him to USC.

A power outage had knocked out all the lights in the neighborhood.

No worries. Robinson provided all the energy anyone would need.

“We had to break out the candles,” Marcus Allen recalled. “We sat there in our living room by candlelight, and John was just as charismatic and funny as he’s always been.”

That night not only launched a legendary playing career but also a Hall of Fame friendship.

“I’m just happy that he knew — and I told his wife this — that every single time I saw him I told him I loved him,” said Allen, whose career achievements include a Heisman Trophy, season and Super Bowl most valuable player honors and a bronze bust in Canton, Ohio. “I loved him, and I think he knew that.”

Rams' coach John Robinson and Bears' coach Mike Ditka talk before the NFC championship football game in 1986.

In that respect, Allen was a face in the crowd. Robinson, who died Monday at age 89, was beloved by his players and beyond. They can list his achievements with USC and the Rams — a national championship, four Rose Bowl victories, two trips to the NFC title game — but value more who Robinson was as a person.

“Even when I was playing against him, I wanted to show him the heart and passion he instilled in me,” said Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, a USC star who went on to face Robinson’s Rams teams as a centerpiece of the San Francisco 49ers’ defense. “I remember if I made a hit, he would stand on the sidelines and wag his finger at me. I was like, `You created this.’”

The mark Robinson left on the lives of his players was indelible.

“John had us believing that we could do anything,” Allen said. “He never compared USC to another university. He always said that if the Rams wanted to play us, we would meet them in the parking lot. `You name the place and time and we’ll be there.’”

That opinion was lofty, the man was not. He was incredibly accessible to his players, chiding them if they failed to stop by his office and say hello if they were wandering around Heritage Hall.

Anthony Munoz, the future Hall of Fame offensive tackle, remembers his coach sticking up for him at training table in the late 1970s when teammates playfully needled him about his long hair.

Then there was the time Robinson made the 40-mile drive east from USC to Ontario to chauffeur Munoz to Chaffey High on national signing day. Riding shotgun was USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux, as the hulking Munoz was also a prized baseball recruit who pitched for the Trojans on a national championship team.

“I’ll never forget sitting in my house and all of a sudden this big cardinal Cadillac comes up,” Munoz said. “He said, `Come on, Moon, we’re going to give you a ride to school.’ So I said, `Heck, yeah.’ I get in and Dedeaux gets in the back seat and the first thing [Robinson] does is says, `Here’s a little something to get you fired up for school today.’ He puts in an 8-track and it’s the USC marching band.

“I don’t think I could tell you what happened that day, what I did at school or anything. I was just thinking about Conquest and Fight On.”

Rams owner Georgia Frontiere and coach John Robinson welcome Eric Dickerson to the Rams.

Then there was the one who got away — temporarily. Robinson recruited running back Eric Dickerson out of high school but couldn’t lure him to USC. Robinson was with the Rams in 1983 when they used the No. 2 pick on the star running back from Southern Methodist.

“I finally got you,” Robinson announced at Dickerson’s introductory news conference.

Dickerson, the Hall of Famer who set the NFL’s rookie rushing record and the league’s single-season rushing record the following season, was traded to Indianapolis after 4½ seasons.

“I really feel we would have won one Super Bowl or maybe two had we kept that Rams team together,” Dickerson said.

Even in the final decade of his life, Robinson still was making a contribution to college football. When former USC coach Ed Orgeron guided Louisiana State to a national championship in 2019, he brought in Robinson as a consultant.

“He brought a lot of knowledge and intuition to our coaches and players,” Orgeron told the Times’ Gary Klein. “Everyone loved him.”

Same goes for the pros.

“John Robinson was hands down my all-time favorite head coach,” former Rams quarterback Jim Everett said. “His ability to communicate with men was a sight to witness. He treated every one of us like family…

“I really feel he would have been a champion in the pros if the Rams gave him personnel decisions, but that never happened and that fact drove him crazy.”

Some of Robinson’s favorite times in the NFL were working as a second set of football eyes to his best friend and iconic broadcaster, John Madden, when the two would tour the country in the Madden Cruiser.

Those two grew up in South San Francisco as fifth-graders at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

“Just two doofuses from Daly City,” Robinson told the Times in 2021, shortly after Madden’s death.

Perpetual helpers, both. Two “doofuses” who left quite a legacy.