In the four years of Greg Robinson’s tenure at Syracuse, he’d often remind people about his career before he came to be head coach of the Orange. He’d give subtle, off-hand anecdotes about defensive plays in Kansas City or Austin, Texas, or quarterbacks he’s seen over the years in the NFL or college football. Occasionally he’d wear his Super Bowl ring to press conferences. ‘I’ve been in the gun sights before,’ he said Sunday.

He rarely liked talking about himself, it seems, unless he was referring to his own personal good-ole-days, back when he was a fresh-faced defensive wiz on successful teams with successful head coaches. His resume, while scarred deeply now, always acted as a shield against the restless criticisms barbing at his pride.

His positivism glared – like white hair above a tanned face – but it’s hard to know what Greg Robinson really believed he was accomplishing as head coach at SU for four seasons. It’s hard to think he knew exactly what he was getting into.

Yet faced with imminent expulsion, he remained remarkably upbeat, unflinchingly optimistic about his team, his situation, his position on an island where the community outrage was violently creeping in. Did he not know his resume as a lifeboat sank long ago?

That’s just Greg, I suppose – tip-toeing the line of self-confidence and delusion, always a man of wit and winks. He bit his lip to the flagrant animosity surrounding his program, often sounding like a man with his head deep in the sand. It’s fitting, I guess, for what was his situation to begin with: He was in over his head from the start.

Why did he keep bringing up positives when fans clearly wanted rage? Why did he continue to say the glass is half full when it had clearly shattered within his grasp months ago?

‘It takes a special person,’ SU senior linebacker Jake Flaherty said. ‘There are a lot of negative people that operate out of a negative mind frame, and that’s one thing he doesn’t do.’

Robinson as a coach just never gave much of a reason to like him. There was never a sustained high moment, never a tipping point, never more than one ecstatic game. All lows and low feelings, wrapped in excuses for growth and progress that never came.

He hired outsiders to fill his staff, many without any connection to the area or even the East Coast. He fumbled for answers after games, referring often to his fallback lines, like ‘need to review the film’ or ‘I saw signs.’ He got his players playing his system on defense, and still it surrendered mind-boggling numbers while hovering around the nation’s worst.

Even Sunday, he said he just ‘ran out of time,’ as if the grand plan was slowly still unraveling. No, time was one thing Greg Robinson had plenty of. At times, it seemed like it was the plan that was missing.

‘I just think players play and coaches coach,’ SU senior running back Curtis Brinkley said. ‘We get out on the field, and it’s our job to execute. I just feel sometimes we couldn’t get it going the way we were supposed to get it going. Other times, I really don’t know what it was.’

When Brinkley first arrived at SU, after being recruited by former head coach Paul Pasqualoni in 2004 and spending a year in prep school, he had a semi-public clash with Robinson, mostly about playing time for the highly recruited freshman running back.

‘It wasn’t nice for either one of us,’ Brinkley said.

When Brinkley’s father passed away in the spring of 2005, Robinson was a shoulder to lean on. He’d have Brinkley visit in his office. He’d reach out to Brinkley’s family. He let Brinkley get to know him and his wife, Laura, and son, Dom.

The relationship built, Brinkley said, and the criticisms faded. He still heard the anger from fans and pressure from media about Robinson’s coaching situation. But to him there was a man, suppressing frustration with a smile and a wink, who couldn’t avoid being nice and couldn’t avoid being blasted.

‘I know after Syracuse, when he leaves and I leave, he’s always going to be my No. 1 coach,’ Brinkley said. ‘I know I’m going to be a big part of his life. Until death do us part.’

Perhaps Brinkley saw a side to Robinson few else have seen. To the public he was narrow and resolute, deep in the blind optimism that hid the natural emotions one would expect from a man dangling from a thread. A few weeks ago, after the win over Louisville, he hugged his wife in the press conference room. It was a rare sign his pulse beat outside the rhythm of football and a film projector.

It was a rare sign of a football lifer who never grasped that he couldn’t win football games as a head coach. It was touching, as a tragedy.

In separating the man from the job, there’s a caveat: This is Division I football. There’s a bottom line to the position. Robinson himself often referred to the cliché, ‘the proof is in the pudding.’

The time has come to taste the product. It’s been way overdue. The players stuck behind him because of the man off the field he’s maintained to be; he’s been fired because of the man on the sidelines he couldn’t be.

In two weeks, in his raspy voice, he will say goodbye to Syracuse officially. It’s hard to tell if there will be any emotions left on the press conference room floor – Robinson surely will be trying hard to keep resolute to the end.

He’ll give a ‘doggone it’ or two, and move on from here, back to the beaches of California or the sunny fields of Texas or the any of the other places and programs he’s amassed on his resume of residual football coaching. Quickly, Syracuse will forget about him.

And, eventually, he will forget about Syracuse, the delirious days when he played the role of head football coach and lived out his dream for four short years.

Zach Schonbrun is the sports columnist for The Daily Orange, where his columns appear every Tuesday. He can be reached at zsschonb@syr.edu.

Published on November 16, 2008 at 12:00 pm