John Robinson, HALL OF FAMER - The Sports USA Radio Network is proud to congratulate our colleague John Robinson on his election to the College Football Hall of Fame. Of course, Coach Robinson has been a Hall of Famer to us at college football's largest national radio network for a long time before this. What the National Football Foundation's vote April 30 now elevates above debate is Robinson's status as the greatest ground game coach of modern football history. After succeeding the late John McKay at USC in 1976, Robinson's power running game immediately made the late Ricky Bell an NFL Draft first round millionaire. After Bell's departure to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Charles White won the 1979 Heisman Trophy, and his former bodyguard, Marcus Allen, gave Troy its fourth Heisman in 1981. Marcus also set a new single-season NCAA rushing record, which stood until Barry Sanders broke it in 1988. When J-R moved on to the then Los Angeles Rams in 1983, Pro Football Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson set an NFL rookie rushing record in 1983. Dickerson's 2,105 rushing yards in 1984 remain the NFL's all-time single season record, 25 years later. The Rams twice played for trips to the Super Bowl in seven years under John Robinson. They've been in two NFC championship games in the 20 years since. Though Coach's return to USC in 1994 didn't produce the return to glory that Pete Carroll has made a way of life, it did provide USC's only Rose Bowl victory of the 90s. It also helped make a No. 1 overall pick out of Keyshawn Johnson. Some noble Trojans added to the epic of USC football in the 90s under John Robinson: Keyshawn, Willie McGinest, Tony Boselli and Jason Sehorn, to name a few. Their affection and appreciation for their former coach 15 years after they played for him is a powerful insight into college football's greatest power running game coach. At the Lott Trophy 2009 Watch List luncheon in Newport Beach, Calif. on April 7, Ronnie Lott sat right next to his college coach. Lott spoke movingly of how Coach Robinson didn't just teach him how to be Hall of Famer as a football player, but in fact taught him how to be a hall of famer as a man. High praise, indeed. Take a look at Coach's assistants who have gone on to significant head coaching careers: Oregon State's Mike Riley and the San Diego Chargers' Norv Turner are two of the most prominent. Turner often consulted his mentor (they're both proud Oregon Ducks) and former boss when he built the power running game that convoyed the Dallas Cowboys to three Super Bowl titles in four years, and will eventually sweep Emmitt Smith into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. For me, it was an honor to work with Hall of Famer Dan Fouts on NFL Sundays last fall. That honor extends to Saturdays this season. Coach Robinson's childhood friend, John Madden, surprised us all with his retirement earlier this spring. Madden used to have his close friend accompany him to NBC's Football Night in America assignments, where J-R apparently had the same impact on broadcasts that he had on Norv Turner's running game in Dallas. But let me speak for football fans when I ask Coach, please don't put down that headset just yet. Your insights are more valuable than ever in 2009, you College Football Hall of Famer.

Our warmest congratulations also go to the other members of the College Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009: Pervis Atkins of New Mexico State, 1987 Heisman Trophy winner Tim Brown of Notre Dame, Chuck Cecil of Arizona, Ed Dyas of Auburn, Major Harris of West Virginia, Gordon Hudson of BYU, William Lewis of Harvard, Woodrow Lowe of Alabama, Ken Margerum of Stanford, Steve McMichael of Texas, Chris Spielman of Ohio State, Larry Station of Iowa, Pat Swilling of Georgia Tech, Curt Warner of Penn State and Grant Wistrom of Nebraska. I was a senior when Warner was a freshman at Penn State in 1979. His words, like his runs, came in short, powerful bursts. Seven seconds was all I could get out of him on his first network radio interview after returning a kickoff for a touchdown against Rutgers. Within three years, he blossomed into the leader of Penn State's first national championship team, and a future four-time NFL Pro Bowler with the Seattle Seahawks who became one of the most articulate and sincere interviews I ever encountered.

The College Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009 will be inducted at a National Football Foundation banquet at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York on Dec. 8.