Encyclopedia Of Detroit
Robinson, Will
Sixty years as a trailblazing athlete, educator and coach set William Joseph “Will” Robinson apart from the basketball crowd. Born on June 3, 1911, in Wadesboro, North Carolina, Robinson grew up in Steubenville, Ohio where he quarterbacked the football team and led the golf team to a state championship as a senior. Robinson graduated from West Virginia State College in 1937, earning 15 letters in four sports. He earned a master’s degree in sports education from the University of Michigan.
Robinson’s first coaching position was at DuSable High School in Chicago in 1943. He moved to Detroit in 1944 and was hired by the Detroit Public Schools to coach at Hiller High School. He was Detroit’s first African-American basketball coach following the 1943 Detroit race riots. He would remain the city’s only black coach for 16 years. Robinson went on to coach the basketball teams at Cass Technical High School (1957-60) and Pershing High School (1960-70), where he won the state basketball championship in 1967 and 1970, becoming one of the city’s most respected and admired men.
Robinson became the first African American head coach in NCAA Division I basketball in 1970 when he was hired by Illinois State University (ISU). After retiring from ISU in 1975, Robinson came back to Detroit, landing a scouting position with the Detroit Pistons. He was also hired part-time as the first Black scout in NFL history by the Detroit Lions and worked for them for 22 years. He worked for the Pistons for 28 years before his retirement in 2003. During the 2003-04 NBA season, the Pistons renamed their Palace of Auburn Hills locker room the “Will Robinson Locker Room of Champions.”
During his coaching career, Robinson coached or scouted many outstanding athletes, including Detroit Lions players Lem Barney and Charlie Sanders and NBA stars Spencer Haywood, Doug Collins, Ralph Simpson, Joe Dumars, Dennis Rodman, and John Salley. Robinson earned the John W. Bunn Award from the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992 and was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1982. Additionally, Robinson is a member of six other halls of fame.
Despite his fame, Robinson always maintained his commitment to Detroit, hosting an annual community coaching clinic that impacted the lives of hundreds of athletes and coaches. Robinson died at age 96 in 2008, leaving a tremendous legacy of inspiration and commitment that remains to this day in the players he coached.
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