Johnny Robinson (safety)

Johnny Nolan Robinson (born September 9, 1938) is a former American football all star safety from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was a member of the national championship-winning 1958 LSU Tigers football team.

He founded and operates a youth home for troubled boys in Monroe, Louisiana, and has been a long-time supporter of children's causes.^[1] Robinson was a master thief for the American Football League's Dallas Texans–Kansas City Chiefs, leading the league in interceptions with 10 in 1966 and 1970, and 58 for his career, a team record. He is considered by many contemporaries as the greatest ever to play the position and is credited with redefining the role of safety in modern professional football.{Howard Cosell, Don Meredith, Keith Jackson: Monday Night Football Sept. 1970 Chiefs vs. Colts.}

Robinson was a member of the Texans in their 1962 20–17 double-overtime victory over the two-time defending AFL Champion Houston Oilers in the longest professional football league championship game ever played. He played in Super Bowl I in 1967. In Super Bowl IV, the underdog Chiefs defeated the Minnesota Vikings, 23–7. Late in the first half, Robinson picked up a Minnesota fumble to help seal the Vikings' fate. With Chiefs rushing to congratulate him, sitting on the turf, Robinson symbolically held one finger high to signify that the Chiefs were the best team in professional football. Robinson also had an interception off Joe Kapp in the fourth quarter to end the Vikings' dream of Super Bowl victory.

Robinson retired in the summer of 1972 prior to training camp. His last game came on Christmas Day 1971, when the Chiefs lost to the Miami Dolphins 27–24 after 22 minutes, 40 seconds of overtime. It remains (through the 2010 NFL season) the longest game in NFL history. That contest was also the Chiefs' last game in Kansas City's Municipal Stadium. Robinson thus played in the sport's longest championship game and in its absolute longest game, each game closing out professional football in its respective stadium.

Robinson was a six-time All-American Football League selection who played that Super Bowl game with three broken ribs. Five times the interception leader of the Chiefs, Robinson redefined the role of safety in Professional Football, according to the late Jack Kemp. Opposing quarterbacks soon learned to keep the ball away from him. A member of the All-time All-AFL Team and one of only twenty players who were in the American Football League for its entire ten-year existence, he was a member of a team that won three division titles, three league championships and a World Championship. The Chiefs were 35–1–1 when Robinson made an interception, proving that he was a real impact player.

Robinson and his older brother, Tommy, won the national boys junior tennis championship when they were in University High School at LSU where their father, W.T. "Dub" Robinson, was tennis coach. Johnny became starting fullback in his freshman year at U-High, where he was an honor student.

Robinson is an inductee of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.

See also

• Other American Football League players

References

External links

• Robinson's 1965 Topps football card