Mike Robinson is a man of character. Just ask his boss, Hillcrest High School principal Marty Crawford. He brought Robinson on board last spring as the school’s new athletic director.
“I hit a gold mine with coach Robinson,” he says. “When you hire a solid man like him, you just can’t go wrong.”
But Robinson didn’t get the job based on integrity – he also had a winning record as athletic director at Wilmer Hutchins.
“Every one of his athletic programs at Wilmer Hutchins was successful,” Crawford says. “He was one of the hottest names in Texas in terms of coaching football.”
But for Robinson, that success was bittersweet. The Wilmer Hutchins school district shut down last year, toppling all the athletic programs he had helped build.
“We had built a program in five years that was state-ranked and state-recognized. It was heartbreaking to see my players in other teams’ uniforms,” Robinson says, the hurt still detectable in his voice. “The closing of Wilmer Hutchins is one of the biggest and saddest stories in Texas.”
Moving on hasn’t been easy for Robinson.
“It’s been a tough transition mainly because it almost ruined me financially,” he says. As the district crumbled, the husband and father of three took a much lower-paying position. “When you try to have Christmas for your kids, and you can’t really give it to them, it’s very hard.”
He says he could have avoided financial hardship by leaving Wilmer Hutchins early on, but he chose to stay “’til the bitter end.”
“The kids needed someone they could trust,” he says. “These kids were made the subject of ridicule because of what was happening with Wilmer Hutchins, but at least they knew they had coaches they could count on. I have kids that still come thank me for staying.”
Robinson and his Wilmer Hutchins students remain a tight-knit bunch. When one of his former players, Lendle Carey, was recently shot to death at a Dallas nightclub, he was one of the first to receive the news.
“My students called me immediately, and they just wanted to know why this happened, and I couldn’t tell them why,” he says.
Some media have reported that gang activity may have played a role in the shooting, but Robinson says he’s not buying it.
“No one will ever convince me that he was in a gang because he was one of the most humble, non-boisterous kids I knew,” he says. “I could tell him when he had disappointed me, and he was the kind of kid who would really take it to heart.”
Robinson says he will stand steadfast as his former students grieve.
“This is just another time my babies need me,” he says. “They will always be my babies.”
Robinson not only shares a bond with his former students – he also remains close to his former staff.
“When I got the job here at Hillcrest, I had a lot of people who I had worked with call me and say, ‘I want to come work for you’, and I said, ‘You won’t ever work for me, you’ll work with me’. People follow me because I’m going to be fair, and they know that.”
His leadership ability earned him the Pied Piper nickname. Kirby Warnock, Hillcrest PTA president, says Robinson immediately became a leader at Hillcrest.
“We were all worried that a new athletic director meant there was going to be a drop off, but coach Robinson has lit a fire under everyone,” he says. “I see a lot of enthusiasm about him from all the students. He’s very good at getting everyone energized and on board. I think he’s going to do great things for us.”
Among the first of those things has been the overhaul of Hillcrest’s gym and locker rooms.
Let’s just put it this way, we’ve had an extreme makeover of the athletics facilities here at Hillcrest,” he says with a chuckle. “We’ve now got a gym that looks brand new. I want to give the students a place they can have a sense of pride in.”
He also aims to give Hillcrest an athletic program they can be proud of.
“You play the game to win, but the ultimate goal is to be competitive in all sports,” he says. “As far as athletics goes, I want to raise the school’s expectations, because when your expectations are raised, you’re going to work harder for it.”
But this coach also realizes there are higher priorities than athletics.
“I’m about kids getting their education first and foremost,” he says. “I’d rather see them graduate than be on the starting lineup. Academics are first; athletics is extracurricular.”
Overall, Robinson just wants his Hillcrest players to be well-rounded.
“I’m about kids doing right and acting right,” he says. “I want them to be leaders in life and in their communities. I always tell my kids that I’ll give them the world if they can do right. And by that, I mean: Do right at home, do right at school, and do right on the field.
“If they can do right, I’ll give them the world.”
