Because Clarence Robison did not coach the high-profile sports of basketball and football, most Utah sports fans don't know much, if anything, about him.
But he was big.
He was LaVell Edwards big.
He produced more than 100 all-Americans, 20 Olympians, one national championship, 19 Western Athletic Conference championships, American and world record holders. When he was finished, they put him in the U.S. Track Coaches Hall of Fame and named BYU's world-class track facility Clarence Robison Stadium.
But this misses the point, because what Robison really did was counsel and teach young men, both as a coach and as a leader in his church.
"We talk about the greatest generation," says one of Robison's former athletes, Olympian Ed Eyestone. "He was the greatest of the greatest generation."
When Robison passed away last Wednesday, it marked the end of an era — again. In the past 2 1/2 months, the state has lost two legendary track coaches — Robison and Utah State's Ralph Maughan. Both coached at their alma maters for 40 years. Both had their school's track stadiums named in their honor. Both made the 1948 Olympic team. Both served in World War II. Both grew up in small Utah towns. Both died this summer, at the age of 83.
Hours after Robison passed away, Maughan's widow, Byrnece, called Robison's widow, Monita, and told her, "I'll bet Ralph and Clarence are up there talking about the good old days."
Robison, who was distinguished by his height (6-3) and a shock of wavy white hair, had a baritone voice that he used for years to announce BYU basketball games. Always a gentleman, he rarely angered or spoke a harsh word, and he exuded warmth and wisdom. When he spoke, you wanted to take notes, even if you weren't a reporter.
He was still a student at BYU when he was offered the school's head coaching job. He took the position in 1949 and wound up coaching so long that he coached the children of former athletes. One of them, national pole vault champion Robison Pratt, was named after the coach by his father Albert, one of Robison's former athletes.
"It's revealing that so many of his athletes became coaches, including myself," says Mark Robison, who is now BYU's head track coach, working in the same office where his father worked. "I saw the good influence he had on people and decided that's what I wanted to do."
He was all the things we want coaches to be: leader, father figure, counselor, an influence beyond the athletic field. "I saw him in his office crying with athletes all the time, helping them through challenges that had nothing to do with track," recalls Mark. "I don't know how many times I've had athletes tell me that, next to their father, he was the biggest influence on their lives."
Robison will be buried in Provo today. The funeral will be attended by hundreds of former athletes and missionaries. The stories are sure to flow.
Maybe someone at the pulpit will mention his wit, which tended to catch people off guard, especially coming from such a reserved man. Maybe they will tell of the time he met with BYU president Ernest Wilkinson to sign his contract, as each BYU employee did annually. After Wilkinson informed Robison of his salary, he told the coach, "Robby, you know this is confidential; you can't share any of this."
Robison looked across the desk at Wilkinson, considered his paltry salary, and said, "Don't worry, I'm just as ashamed of this as you are."
Wilkinson didn't laugh, but his friends sure did when he told the story.
(Years later, when the USC coach resigned, one of the BYU vice presidents told Wilkinson that Robison was the No. 1 candidate to replace him. "You do whatever you have to to keep him here," Wilkinson told him. Robison, who had never even been contacted by USC, got the biggest raise of his career and never knew why until much later. The vice president had simply made up the whole thing.
"It was just an indication of what people thought of Dad," says Mark. "They were looking out for him.")
Robison coached so long that people forgot that he had been a great, natural athlete himself. If he had come along in another era, he might be remembered for his distance-running exploits as much as for his coaching.
He lost only one conference race in three years of collegiate competition in the 880, mile and two-mile. He represented the United States in the 5,000-meter run in the 1948 Olympic Games, where he raced (and lost to) the legendary Emil Zatopek. The following year, he wrapped up his running career by touring Europe with the U.S. national team and won 12 of 16 races.
He did almost all of it on natural ability. In those days, Americans believed distance running was unhealthy, that it would damage the heart and lungs. Distance and speed training were unheard of. Robison's training consisted of running six laps on Monday, three laps on Tuesday and Wednesday, and six laps on Thursday, capped by a race on Saturday.
That wouldn't even qualify as a good warmup for today's middle-distance runners, who train 50 to 70 miles a week and mix in a heavy regimen of speed training on the track. Yet Robison managed to run the mile in 4:10 (the world record was 4:01). The Europeans were much more advanced in their training philosophies, and Robison only learned this at the end of his career when he went abroad to compete.
Over the years, Robison frequently lamented the ignorance of his era and wondered what might have been. It never occurred to him that he had done serious training as a boy growing up on a farm near Fillmore without injuring his health. He ran 10 to 15 miles in the mountains when he was hunting with his father. Working for the Forest Service, he used to run 13 miles home at the end of the day because he could get home faster than riding in a truck.
Because amateur rules of the day prevented him from earning a living from his sport, he retired from running in 1949 after his tour of Europe, but while he was abroad he picked the brains of the top runners and coaches to learn more enlightened training techniques. He went on to make BYU one of the premier schools in the country for distance runners. At the 1984 Olympic Trials, BYU graduates swept the three distance races, and a year later another BYU grad won NCAA titles in the 5,000- and 10,000-meter runs and cross country. Robison turned BYU into a top-20 track program.
After retiring, he watched meets from the stands and then would call Mark at home eager to talk about the performances.
"I'm going to miss those calls," says Mark.
Clarence Robison's funeral will be held at 11 a.m. today in the Grandview South LDS Stake Center, 1122 Grand Avenue, Provo.
E-mail: drob@desnews.com