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LANCASTER, PA - Glenn Robinson, head men's basketball coach at Franklin & Marshall College, is now four victories shy of surpassing longtime Illinois Wesleyan head coach Dennie Bridges for the all-time Division III men's basketball record for most career victories. The holder of a career record of 663-233 (.740 winning percentage), he is the winningest active coach in the history of NCAA Division III men's basketball. With four more wins, he will surpass Bridges' career total of 666 wins from 1960 to 2001 at Illinois Wesleyan and become the all-time winningest coach on the Division III level. The record will mark the second major record to fall this year in Division III as St. Johns coach John Gagliardi reset the NCAA all-division record for most career football wins in the fall to surpass Eddie Robinson. For his career, Robinson is averaging a record of 20-7 over the first 32 years of his career as he has led Franklin & Marshall to a 15-2 record, 10-0 in Centennial Conference play, and a #15 national ranking in the latest D3hoops.com poll through the first 17 games of the 2003-04 season. At the Diplomats current pace, the Robinson could tie the record as early as February 7 at Ursinus College before the Diplomats return home for three straight home games on February 11 (Dickinson), 14 (Muhlenberg) and 18 (McDaniel) to close out the regular season home schedule. Franklin & Marshall will then conclude the regular season slate with away games at Washington and Johns Hopkins University on February 21 and 24, respectively. Robinson grew up in Yeadon, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia, learning the game from watching local legends Jack Boyd and "Wheaties" Parker, played high school basketball at nearby Aldan Lansdowne High and collegiate baseball and basketball at Division II West Chester, graduating in 1967 and earning a masters degree a year later. He joined the F&M basketball coaching staff in 1968 under Hall of Fame coach and athletic trainer Chuck Taylor. In 1971, he took over the Diplomats' when Taylor resigned to focus on his athletic training responsibilities. His first win came on December 7, 1971 in Mayser Gymnasium, as Franklin & Marshall men's basketball team, then known as either the Diplomats or Big Blue, and sporting a 0-2 record downed Western Maryland College 80-51. The 1991 Basketball Times Division III "Coach of the Year" and 11 time conference and National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) regiona "Coach of the Year", Rbinson's success has been remarkable in the world of college athletics, but not memorable to the long-time coach. "I honestly don't remember many of the 'big wins,'" noted Robinson with a smile. "When they happen, their just games. You don't
care if it is six, 16 or six hundred. You're just hoping that you win." "I do remember 500, though. It was at home against Hopkins (72-62 W, February 10, 1996). That was special, but every game is with the talent we've had over the years." Other milestones have already passed for Robinson as he has already surpassed Houston's Guy Lewis (1957-86, 592 wins), Georgetown's John Thompson (1973-99, 596 wins) and Oregon State's Slats Gill (1929-64, 599 wins) on the all-time National Collegiate Athletic Association win list. Entering the 2004 season, Robinson ranked 29th among all NCAA head men's basketball coaches in career victories with 648, five behind 28th place Jim Boeheim of Syracuse and one better than 30th place Jim Calhoun of Connecticut. However, the most astonishing factor is the length of time it has taken Robinson to reach his level of success. Consider the fact that NCAA Division I programs, such as Georgetown, play significantly more contests than Division III schools. For D-I head coach Lewis, the head coach of a Houston program which included NBA caliber talent, including Hakeem Olojuwan, he needed 30 years to reach 592 wins while regularly advancing into the NCAA Division I Tournament, while Robinson achieved over 600 wins in 31 coaching on the academic-oriented Division III Historically, only 41 coaches in collegiate basketball history have won 600 games entering the 2004 season, led by Dean Smith with 897. Ironically, much of Robinson's success and coaching style has been based on the record setting coach. It was only a couple of years into his coaching career that Franklin & Marshall's Glenn Robinson got to sit down and chat with Smith. "I remember sitting in a corner of the Carolina Inn with Coach Smith, just talking," Robinson said. "I learned more in those three hours then I did the rest of my life. I would ask a one-level question. He answered it on three levels. I sat up all night when I got back to the room, just writing down what he said." "I asked him how many players I should keep," said Robinson, who also talked with Smith's assistants at the time, future head coaches Bill Guthridge and Roy Williams. "He told me that any beyond seven or eight had better be great kids. I was talking to him about screens. He went on to tell me more about screening than I ever knew existed. I would ask him about the Xs and Os of a play. He would talk about how in the middle of the move, a players feet needed to be facing a certain way. All those little techniques in basketball that worked, they were all there (in that discussion)." Robinson borrowed Smith's four corners offense, not as a weapon to stall, but instead to score a lot. He modified Smith's other systems with others
to fit his squads' abilities. "He is an offensive genius," said Dave Troxell, Robinson's first recruit at F&M and former boys' basketball coach at Annville-Cleona High School. "He is a mastermind at how to take talent and mold it into a machine in his open offense (a spread offense that requires five good ballhandlers). He's also a great motivator. He knows how to get the most out of people." Consider that among the top 30 coaches on all levels of the NCAA, Robinson holds the tenth best winning percentage as his mark has been bettered by only Kentucky's Adolph Rupp (.822), UCLA's John Wooden (.804), UNLV/Fresno State's Jerry Tarkanian (.784), North Carolina's Dean Smith (.776), Northern State's Don Meyer (.746), Syracuse's Jim Boeheim (.743), Arizona's Lute Olson (.742), Kansas' Phog Allen (.739) and Duke's Mike Krzyewski (.739) entering the 2004 season. "There isn't a coach who wouldn't want to be considered in the same sentence as (John) Wooden, Adolph Rupp and Dean. It is a credit to our program that I got one win, let alone 600 or more," added Robinson. Ironically, Robinson is quickly catching up to Wooden as he is now within two games of surpassing the father of UCLA basketball for 25th on the all-time NCAA wins list. Unlike most Division I schools, which measure graduation rate based on the percentage of four-year players who get a degree, Robinson has a different standards. During his tenure, all but one player to earn a varsity letter in basketball has earned a degree, a statistic which few, if any, other college in the nation can boast. "I think that the thing that impresses me most when I look at F&M is the kind of program that Glenn Robinson has built and maintained," said Hope College coach Glenn Van Wieren prior to facing the Diplomats in the 1996 Final Four. "He's truly one of college basketball's best coaches at any level." But Robinson's road to NCAA history did not look realistic when he took over the program from Chuck Taylor in the fall of 1971. Following a year which saw F&M finish 4-16, its seventh consecutive losing season, Robinson would lead the 1971-72 Diplomats to a 7-14 improvement with wins over Western Maryland, Eastern, Penn State-Harrisburg, Haverford, Juniata, Messiah and a season concluding 68-51 victory over Drexel University. 1973 would find the Diplomats at 11-13 as Robinson struggled to rebuild the team from a losing streak which stretched back to the program's last winning season, a 10-9 record in the last year of legendary head coach S. Woodrow Sponaugle's tenure in 1962-63. Finally, in 1974, Robinson and the Diplomats broke through for a 13-11 mark, the team's most wins since a 13-6 performance under Sponaugle in 1959. 1976 found Robinson
resetting the school win record with a 17-8 record, erasing the 16 win seasons of Sponaugle in 1952, J. Shober Barr in 1941 and himself from the 1975 season. But the record would not stand for long as he broke it again in 1977 with 22, 1979 with 27, 1991 with 28 and 1996 with 29. In terms of regular season and NCAA Tournament success, few coaches in the history of Divisions I, II or III can match Robinson's success. Eighteen 20 win seasons, including 10 from 1987 to 1996, eighteen NCAA Division III Tournament bids, including 11 consecutive years from 1986 to 1996, four appearances in the Final Four and a national title game appearance in 1991. His career win total accounts are an astonishing 59.6% of the total collegiate wins in Franklin & Marshall men's basketball history (1,113) since the inception of the sport in 1899-1900 under H.S. Wingert. In Middle Atlantic States Athletic and Centennial Conference play since 1974, the Diplomats have compiled 320 wins and 81 losses. Further, F&M has earned 25 conference playoff berths, including 17 in the last 18 years, and 13 playoff titles, with eight in the last 14 years. In the Centennial Conference alone, Robinson's portfolio of 125 wins and 29 losses, eight Centennial Conference Western Division Championships and three conference playoff titles, paint the picture of a man whose agenda would seem to lie in winning basketball games. "In terms of the program, I am most proud of our consistency. Making the NCAA tournament is not easy, especially over a long period of time. Earning a spot 18 times in 32 years is a credit to what we do and what we turn out in terms of students." The consistency, which has become his trademark, is a Robinson family trait. The father of two (Wynn and Carolyn), Robinson's father worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad for 49 years. If Robinson can stay in this business as long as his dad stayed at his job, Smith's overall mark of 897 wins might be in jeopardy. That doesn't figure to happen, but just being mentioned in the same company is something special. "This isn't a coaching milestone, it's one for all the people that have come through here," Robinson said, referring to the possibility that he'll break Bridges' mark later this season. "I haven't scored a point. I was fortunate to become a head coach so young and super-fortunate to get the players that got us going in the right direction. I will be very proud if it happens." But the thing that is most important to Robinson isn't the wins or losses, but a banner that hangs in the Mayser Center where his coaching career began as an assistant to Taylor on the sidelines in 1968. It is a simple block-lettered banner that lists the names of the twelve men's basketball All-America players who have worn the royal blue and white uniform of Franklin & Marshall College. All have played for Robinson, including names like Will Lasky (1991 honorable mention, 1992 first team), Don Marsh (1977 & 1979 second team), Jeremiah Henry (1996 first team), Phil Hoeker (1989 honorable mention), Dave Janetta (1994 honorable mention, 1995 third team, 1995 second team), Dennis Westley (1981 second team) and Alex Kraft (2000 first team, 2001 honorable mention). All told, three players have earned first team, four players second team, two players third team and seven players honorable mention since Donnie Marsh '79 first earned the award in 1977. "If you look at F&M over the years, you'll see that there's rarely a player with an average of more than 17 points per game," noted Henry. "The best way to play basketball is for all five people on the floor to function completely as a unit. We really stress teamwork and the ability to play together and that comes through coaching and coach Robinson's system." Teacher, mentor, and one of the best coaches in college basketball, Glenn Robinson has earned multiple titles on and off the court, and he has the banners and soon the NCAA Division III wins record to prove it.
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