The retired and revered championship coach at Millwood High School for whom the football stadium there is named died on Tuesday.Coach Leodies Robinson was 69.
The stadium was named in his honor in September.
The famed football coach (who counted several professional athletes as among those who crossed his path) was inducted into the Oklahoma Coaches Hall of Fame in 1994.
Before he retired, Coach Robinson had been the only football coach in Millwood High’s history, and the record he chalked up while there led to a number of honors, including his hall of fame induction.
His teams made 20 consecutive trips to the state playoffs, and he coached 18 All-State players and five who were named All-American.
When the Robinson Football Stadium was named last year in his honor, a statement boasted that Coach Robinson had helped mold Joe Carter (the professional baseball great), as well as Rodney Harding and Gary Lewis (both of Oklahoma State University football fame), and Joey Mickey and Russell Allen (who went on to play for the University of Oklahoma).
Coach Robinson coached the 1985 Oklahoma squad when that team won a 14-13 victory over the highly-favored Texas team in the annual Oil Bowl.
He was a graduate of Chaplin Kapaun Memorial High School in Wichita, Kan., and, while attending there, showed early promise as an outstanding football player (and an outstanding coach of the sport).
The young Leodies Robinson was a four-year starter on the football team at his high school, and made All-State during his junior and senior years.
Mr. Robinson went on to graduate from Langston University after a stint with the U.S. Army.
He graduated from Langston in 1969, and received a master of education degree from the University of Central Oklahoma.
It was in 1970 that Coach Robinson began his coaching career at Millwood High, serving then as head coach of the ninth grade team.
A year later, he was named head football coach at the school, and he went on to compile a 196-71-3 record for a 24-year career.
(Incidentally, Coach Robinson also taught mathematics and drivers education at Millwood High.)
The revered coach’s 1990 team was the Class 2A state champions, and the teams he led in 1974 and 1975 finished competitions to become state runner-up.
His Falcons won 18 district championships, 12 regional championships, five area championships and four conference titles.
The Oklahoma Coaches Association named him Region 8 Football Coach of the Year in 1976 and in 1982.
Survivors are his wife, Suzanne Robinson; and two sons, Brian Robinson and L. Nathan Robinson.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Monday, Nov. 23, at the Cox Convention Center.
Interment will be held at Memorial Park Cemetery & Mausoleum under the direction of Heritage Funeral Home.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the Leodies Robinson Memorial Fund of the Millwood Enrichment Foundation.
