Grambling's Gambling At NCAA DI Level Trashes Eddie Robinson's Legacy

The previously-proud G-Men, where a long-time school president (Dr. Jones) also served honorably as the baseball coach, are now the hand-wringing Q-Men (as in "Quit"). Grambling's struggling football program, which had its own weekend TV network during legendary coach Eddie Robinson's heyday, was tarnished by boycotting a game at Jackson State for reasons equivalent to McDonald's minions whining about work conditions.

Evidence that the gloomy days at Grambling could be worse surfaced when the CIAA championship game was cancelled after Winston-Salem State's quarterback was allegedly beaten by a group of Virginia State players in a bathroom of a WSSU campus building during the league's football banquet. Boys will be boys, but did "The Longest Yard" incident make you wonder what the average college board score was for this collection of contemptible characters?

The chaos at Grambling isn't confined to the gridiron. The school's basketball program, winless last season (ghastly 0-28 after squandering halftime lead in opening round of SWAC tourney against Alabama A&M) with all of its regular-season defeats by double-digit margins, has faced DI misery "mold" in its locker room for an extended period. The toothless Tigers never have appeared in the NCAA Division I Tournament.

Grambling, boasting as much athletic competence as a criminal navigator in the objectionable ObamaCare rollout (reportedly grand total of six enrollments the first day), isn't the only HBCU institution imprisoned at the NCAA Division I level. Most of them are little more than indentured servants doing the bidding of their major university masters almost always getting whipped on the road as picking-on-patsies fodder during non-conference competition. In a form of "gaming the system," a striking number of power league schools appear as if they want to celebrate Black History Month in advance during their non-conference slates by overdosing on scheduling outmatched opponents from the MEAC and SWAC.

Most fans are unaware that Robinson won more than 70% of his games as Grambling's basketball coach from 1942 to 1956. The Tigers, coached at the time by Fred Hobdy, placed in the top five of College Division/Division II polls 40 consecutive weeks from March 2, 1961, through January 28, 1965. Beginning with third-rounder Charles Hardnett in 1962, the G-Men supplied one of the top 21 NBA draft picks four consecutive years through 1965. But the "New Deal" moving up to major-college status has been a raw deal for the Tigers since the mid-1970s. They even lost to Xavier (La.), a small school from New Orleans, by 37 points in 1991-92 (106-69).

Grambling A.D. Aaron James was the 28th pick in the 1974 NBA draft. Despite James' prowess, he wasn't one of the total of 23 products from historically black colleges and universities now at the NCAA DI level, including eight from Grambling, among the following top 22 NBA draft choices in a 20-year span from 1957 through 1976:

1957 - Sam Jones (North Carolina Central/8th pick overall) and Bob McCoy (Grambling/10th)
1958 - Ben Swain (Texas Southern/8th)
1959 - Dick Barnett (Tennessee A&I/5th)
1960 - none
1961 - Ben Warley (Tennessee A&I/6th) and Cleo Hill (Winston-Salem State/8th)
1962 - Zelmo Beaty (Prairie View/3rd) and Charles Hardnett (Grambling/21st)
1963 - Hershell West (Grambling/16th)
1964 - Willis Reed (Grambling/10th)
1965 - Wilbert Frazier (Grambling/12th) and Harold Blevins (Arkansas AM&N/17th)
1966 - none
1967 - Earl Monroe (Winston-Salem State/2nd) and James Jones (Grambling/13th)
1968 - none
1969 - Willie Norwood (Alcorn A&M/19th)
1970 - Jake Ford (Maryland State/20th)
1971 - Fred Hilton (Grambling/19th) and Ted McClain (Tennessee State/22nd)
1972 - none
1973 - none
1974 - Truck Robinson (Tennessee State/22nd)
1975 - Marvin Webster (Morgan State/3rd), Eugene Short (Jackson State and Tom Boswell (South Carolina State before transferring to South Carolina/17th)
1976 - Larry Wright (Grambling/14th)

Amid Grambling's recent groveling, is it time for hapless HBCU affiliates to return to the DII level? The truth about black crime in basketball is that it's a big sin many observers don't know or can't recall the high degree of success historically-black colleges and universities enjoyed there. It simply isn't going to the back of the bus. For instance, Norfolk State appeared in the NCAA Division II Tournament 10 times in a 12-year span from 1984 until finishing third in the 1995 tourney. The Spartans upset Missouri in the 2012 NCAA DI playoffs but no HBCU ever has reached a Sweet 16.

What many observers should know is seven different historically black colleges and universities advancing to the NCAA DI level captured a total of nine NAIA and NCAA College Division Tournament championships in a 21-year span from 1957 through 1977 (Tennessee State from 1957 through 1959, Grambling '61, Prairie View A&M '62, Winston-Salem State '67, Morgan State '74, Coppin State '76 and Texas Southern '77). Coppin State is the lone school in this group to go on and post a triumph in the NCAA Division I playoffs.

Winson-Salem State saw what life looked like on the DI side of the fence and abandoned ship after only one season. All but two of the 25 HBCUs endured at least one season with 20 defeats in a six-year span from 2003-04 through 2008-09. The pair that emerged unscathed during that stretch were Hampton (worst record was 13-17 in 2003-04) and Norfolk State (11-19 in 2006-07).

Conference members from the Mid-Eastern Athletic and Southwestern Athletic have won only 10% of their NCAA Division I Tournament games. Alcorn State registered the first three of the following modest total of nine HBCU wins over 33 years in the DI tourney (four in preliminary round competition; including Florida A&M's 15-point victory over Lehigh in 2004) since the SWAC and MEAC moved up to the DI level in 1979-80 and 1980-81, respectively:

1980 Midwest First Round: #8 Alcorn State 70 (Baker/Smith game-high 18 points), #9 South Alabama 62 (Rains 22)
1983 Midwest Preliminary Round: Alcorn State 81 (Phelps 18), Xavier 75 (Fleming 16)
1984 Midwest Preliminary Round: Alcorn State 79 (Phelps 21), Houston Baptist 60 (Lavodrama 14)
1993 West First Round: #13 Southern (LA) 93 (Scales 27), #4 Georgia Tech 78 (Mackey 27)
1997 East First Round: #15 Coppin State 78 (Singletary 22), #2 South Carolina 65 (McKie 16)
2001 West First Round: #15 Hampton 58 (Williams 16), #2 Iowa State 57 (Rancik/Shirley 10)
2004 Preliminary Round: Florida A&M 72 (Woods 21), Lehigh 57 (Tempest 13)
2010 Preliminary Round: Arkansas-Pine Bluff 61 (Smith 14), Winthrop 44 (Corbin 13)
2012 West First Round: #15 Norfolk State 86 (O'Quinn 26), #2 Missouri (Dixon 22)