The Bayou Classic: Eddie Robinson's Dream Come True
SWAC.org
Nov. 27, 2009
By Roscoe Nance
Special to SWAC.org
The Bayou Classic, which features SWAC rivals Grambling State and Southern University, is more than just another football game. It's part homecoming as thousands of the schools' alumni from across the country flock to New Orleans each year for the game, and it's part reunion as families have made a tradition of gathering in the Crescent City annually on Thanksgiving weekend for the contest.
But more than anything, the Bayou Classic is a memorial to the vision of Eddie Robinson - Grambling State's legendary coach - who when he retired had won more football games than anyone in history. More than 50 years ago, Robinson dreamed of the day that Grambling State and other HBCUs would play in packed stadiums in major cities.
Robinson, who died in 2007 at age 88, did more than dream dreams, though. He made it happen 35 years when he convinced Southern University to move the schools' annual season-ending contest from their campuses to New Orleans. Thus the Bayou Classic was born, and it has grown to become the most glamorous game among Football College Subdivision (FCS) contests.
More than 200,000 fans are expected to descend on New Orleans this weekend for the 36th Bayou Classic, which will be played Saturday at the Louisiana Superdome and televised nationally on NBC.
"This is what he wanted,'' says retired Grambling State athletic administrator and baseball coach Wilbert Ellis, who worked closely with Robinson over the years. "He always had this dream that these large crowds could be same as the Sugar bowl, the Cotton Bowl and that crowds could come together, fellowship and enjoy themselves. If he were still alive, he'd be rejoicing; he'd be happy to see how the game has grown.'
The Bayou Classic annually is among the best-attended games in the FCS, and the rivalry between Southern and Grambling is among the most intense.
"It's the big one,'' Grambling State coach Rod Broadway says. "It's Ohio State-Michigan; it's Southern Cal-UCLA; it's Alabama-Auburn. It's the one people live for.''
And Robinson, who in 1997 retired with 408 victories during his 56-year career - all at Grambling State - is largely responsible for it being so.
Robinson, in his autobiography, Never Before, Never Again, wrote that he began to put in motion a plan for what was to become the Bayou Classic after the Tigers played Florida A&M in the 1955 Orange Blossom at Miami's Orange Bowl. The game drew 48,000 fans, which was the biggest crowd Robinson's team had played in front of at that time.
Robinson returned to Grambling brimming with excitement about the potential of a similar game involving the Tigers. In 1956, he wrote the Sugar Bowl Committee proposing that Grambling play a selected opponent in the Sugar Cup Classic at 76,000-seat Tulane Stadium in New Orleans as a prelude to the Sugar Bowl. The Sugar Bowl Committee rejected Robinson's proposal, saying they had enough problems staging their game without taking on another contest.
Undaunted, Robinson approached a group of black New Orleans businessmen with his idea. It took eight years for the businessmen to put together an organization, which went to the city and got approval for the game to be played at City Park Stadium, a dilapidated high school football field.
The game was a debacle. Grambling State defeated an overmatched Bishop College squad 42-6 in a contest that was played in one of those downpours that New Orleans is famous for.
Robinson wrote in his autobiography that the parking lot was so muddy cars couldn't get in or out, and the game may have drawn 2,000 fans.
Robinson moved on, but he never gave up on his dream. In 1968, the Tigers faced Morgan State in the Urban League Classic at a jam-packed Yankee Stadium. That game continued to be successful with Grambling State in it for a number of years. However, in the back of his mind Robinson was still thinking about the ill-fated Sugar Cup Classic and what could be done to make it work.
It came to him that whenever Southern played at Grambling, the Tigers' stadium couldn't accommodate the crowd.
Ellis recalls that for the 1972 game - the last time Southern played at Grambling - spectators were in trees and on top of buildings because not everyone could get into the stadium.
The following year, Robinson cajoled and ultimately convinced Southern to move the contest to 41,000-seat Independence Stadium. The game set a stadium attendance record and paved the way for the move to New Orleans and the inaugural Bayou Classic at Tulane Stadium in 1974. The first Bayou Classic drew 76,753 fans as redshirt freshman quarterback Doug Williams led Grambling State to a 21-0 victory.
"He was in hog heaven,'' Williams says, recalling Robinson's joy that day. "You walk out the tunnel for pre-game warm-ups and there's nothing but people. That's what they dreamed of.''
The following year, the Bayou Classic moved to the Superdome and has been played there ever since except 2005. That year it was played in Houston because of damage to the Superdome from Hurricane Katrina. Still, the contest drew 53,214. The lowest attendance for the Bayou Classic was 47,136 in 2006, the game's first year back in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
"The Bayou Classic is classic games what the Rose Bowl is to bowl games because of what it became from Day 1'' says Williams, who was 4-0 in the Bayou Classic. "Other classics grew from it. Other classics are older and may have better attendance. But from the first (Bayou) Classic, the crowd was there.''
This year's Bayou Classic has a different air about it. For only the second time this since the SWAC split into two divisions in 1999 and went to a conference championship game, neither team will represent the Western Division in the title game; and for one of the few times in the history of this rivalry neither is in the running for the conference crown.
Prairie View A&M won the West and will play Alabama A&M for the title while Grambling, the 2008 SWAC champion, is 6-4 and 4-2 in the conference and Southern is 6-3 and 3-2.
"It is strange,'' Southern coach Pete Richardson says. "Now we're just playing for tradition and pride.''
For many alumni of both schools, those aren't to be taken lightly.
"That means much more to people than the championship,'' Richardson says. "The people's champion is the winner of the Bayou Classic. Even from the time you start practice, people want to know how you're going to do in the Bayou Classic. It's part of the culture of this region. You have to live in this area to understand it.''
Broadway came to understand how much weight winning the Bayou Classic carries in his first season at Grambling State two years ago. The Tigers entered the game with the Western Division crown already won but lost to Southern 22-13. That led to a hot discussion between Broadway and a former Grambling player on the sideline.
"You have high expectations no matter who we play,'' Broadway says. "You want to win all games, but you definitely want to win the rivalry game.''
Roscoe Nance is a sports journalist with 34 years experience who most recently wrote for USA TODAY.