UNLV’s Robinson never reached ‘big one’

Steve Guiremand

Thursday, Jan. 31, 2002 | 10:43 a.m.

John Robinson has accomplished just about everything a football coach can accomplish.

He coached a national championship team at Southern Cal in 1978. He is 4-0 in the Rose Bowl. He coached Heisman Trophy winners Charles White and Marcus Allen as well as a slew of perennial Pro Bowlers such as Ronnie Lott, Anthony Munoz, Keyshawn Johnson and Bruce Matthews. He beat Notre Dame in South Bend when the USC-Notre Dame rivalry was the big game in college football.

He also coached the Los Angeles Rams to two NFC championship games.

About the only thing Robinson hasn't done is coach in a Super Bowl.

He came close three times. Besides coaching the Rams to within a game of the Super Bowl in 1985 and 1989, he also was an assistant for longtime buddy John Madden on an Oakland Raiders squad that lost to eventual Super Bowl champ Pittsburgh in 1975.

"Oh, sure you wish you could have gone to the Super Bowl," Robinson said. "That's the goal. But I thought the NFC and AFC championship games I was in were fabulous games, too. They were the most intense games I've ever been a part of.

"There was nothing else. There were no watches given out. There was no banquet. You just played the game and it meant everything."

The Raiders lost to the Steelers, 16-10, in the 1975 AFC title game. That would be as close as Robinson would get to a Super Bowl.

His 1985 Rams squad was blanked by the Chicago Bears, 24-0, at Soldier Field. The Bears went on to do a Super Bowl Shuffle on the New England Patriots, 46-10, in New Orleans.

Robinson's last try came in 1989 when Joe Montana and Lott led the 49ers to a 30-3 win the NFC title game. San Francisco went on to hammer Denver, 55-10, in the Super Bowl.

"We got beat bad in both of those NFC games," Robinson said. "But those were two of the great teams of all-time."

Robinson has attended several Super Bowls and calls it "an event."

"In a way, it's more than a game, it's a show," he said. "It's the magnitude of having 500 people running out on the field to set up a stage at halftime, the fireworks ... it's kind of similar to the opening ceremonies at the Olympics. The games last about four hours. But it's fun to go to. It's usually in warm weather and it's a festive atmosphere."

But Robinson believes the game can't match the intensity of the AFC and NFC title games he took part in.

"The Super Bowl means everything but it's mixed with a lot of other distractions," he said. "The Rose Bowl is kind of that way, too. But the NFC and AFC championship games were just the most intense football I've ever seen because the prize was so big. The winner got to go to the Super Bowl. It's kind of like you got to unlock the key to heaven."

Unfortunately for Robinson, it's a key he never got to turn.