OTish: Will Robinson Apprecation

Submitted by Robbie Moore on
Recently was reminded of Will Robinson, the late and very great high school and college coach. First black high school coach in Michigan and first black D1 college basketball coach. Unearthed Lem Barney as a scout for the Lions and Dennis Rodman as a scout for the Pistons. Robinson won the 1967 State high school basketball championship while coaching at Detroit Pershing. Check out this starting 5: Spencer Haywood, Ralph Simpson, Paul Seal, Glenn Doughty and Marvin Lane. That is 2 NBA allstars, two U-M and NFL players and an MLB outfielder. Wow! Robinson lived to 96 and passed in 2004. He should not be forgotten.

Yo_Blue

March 16th, 2017 at 3:07 PM ^

Robby the Robot was built by the same propman as the Lost in Space one.  Did you know that the full name of the robot was:

B-9, Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot

mGrowOld

March 16th, 2017 at 3:28 PM ^

But did YOU know in the original aired pilot the robot was programmed by Dr. Smith to destroy the Jupiter and  because Dr. Smith miscalculated his escape and got stuck on board he was was able to stop him (although he did throw the ship off course hence the name "Lost in Space".  The pilot episode was not made available to syndication so most people have never seen it unless you remember when it first aired OR you bought the boxed set when they began selling the series to the general public.

AND did you know there was actually a second, unaired pilot episode that was much, much darker than the one they ulitmately ran?  In that episode the Robinsons crash on a desolate planet and the storylines were planned to go far less "camp" and far more serious/dark?  CBS felt that was too "edgy" for the time so they went with the lighter, more comedic version of the series.  That pilot was only recently discoverd and was never aired.

shoes

March 16th, 2017 at 3:55 PM ^

great Detroit Pershing team lost the Detroit City League title to Detroit Northwestern which featured John Mayberry who went on to play baseball with the KC Royals.

I was at Jenison fieldhouse to watch their semifinal win over Detroit Catholic Central as part of a double header with Kalamazoo Central and Flint Central in the second game. 

To this day Pershing had the best HS team I have ever seen..

Wolfman

March 17th, 2017 at 6:23 AM ^

Hell, their future NFLer,  Rison, even played a bit of point guard while at MSU. Grayer and Rice were both AAs, one at Iowa St; the other one of our all-time greats. Penndleton committed to USC, I believe. 

“Good” was an understatement. Seven players from those two teams went on to Divison I schools: Grayer (Iowa State), Rice (Michigan), Rison (Michigan State football), Pendleton (Iowa, USC), Nunn (Wisconsin-Green Bay) and Avery and Darryl Miller (both to Central Michigan). Grayer and Rice had long careers in the NBA.\

27-1 first year, 28-0 second, best ever two year record in state and their 60 consecutive wins is still the Class A standard. 

Bo248

March 16th, 2017 at 5:05 PM ^

I saw him break a backboard once in one of his first U of D games (dunking was illegal but he did it anyway) against Aquinas. Legend has it he would pluck quarters off the top of the backboard. He led the NCAA in rebounding with a 21.5 average per game while scoring 32.1 points per game during the 1968–69 season, amazing athleticism.

tf

March 16th, 2017 at 5:46 PM ^

Were you reminded of him in the Darko thread?  The one in which one poster squarely blamed Robinson for being primarily (entirely?) responsible for the Pistons picking Darko?  

That's what reminded me of him recently.  FWIW, I agree with the people arguing that Darko seemed a good pick at the time, and either way, I don't believe the Pistons relied largely on Will Robinson's opinion at the time.