Wednesday, May 21, 2003 | 10:55 a.m.
Take away the slash from John Robinson's title.
No longer is he the head football coach/athletic director at UNLV. Instead, Robinson, 67, will go simply by the term "Coach" again after stepping down Tuesday as the school's athletic director.
Robinson had held both roles for the past 17 months since taking over for the retired Charles Cavagnaro on Jan. 1, 2001, joining Watson Brown of UAB as the only Division I-A football coaches who also doubled as their school's AD's.
But after he and his wife Linda both suffered major medical setbacks in the span of about of a week three months ago, Robinson decided to pull back and concentrate his time coaching football as well as helping to tend to his ill wife.
"Basically this has been a very difficult winter for my family," Robinson said during a press conference on Tuesday afternoon at the Si Redd Room at the Thomas & Mack Center.
Linda Robinson, who did not attend Tuesday's press conference, underwent major breast cancer surgery in late February and faces further operations and treatments in the upcoming months. Robinson then suffered a heart attack on March 3 and underwent surgery to remove a blockage from his right coronary artery.
Robinson was back on the sideline for the start of spring practice a few weeks later and has been routinely putting in eight to 10 hour days. He also has dropped 15 pounds thanks to a special diet and workout regimin.
But trying to juggle both football head coaching duties and athletic director responsibilites became too much, especially when his family's health issues were thrown into the mix.
"He has been struggling with this," UNLV President Dr. Carol Harter said. "Finally I think he had to make the choice of family and I totally support that.
"I very much regret that John has to do this. But I completely understand and support it. I just have great empathy for what John and Linda are going through."
Robinson stressed that he has felt fine since his heart surgery. But he said he needed to make the decision so he would have more time to spend and care for his wife of 13 years.
"She's in a position where it's not life-threatening or anything like that," Robinson said. "But it's at a point where I need to be there for her. I think I was stretched a little thin (doing both jobs) and probably didn't give her the support over the last few months that I should have or could have. I'm going to rectify that.
"All our families have health issues that come up. You just have to face them. She's going to be fine, but it's something that I need to put at the forefront of my life. ... I have to do this."
By dropping his athletic director duties now, Robinson will have more time to spend with his wife during the normally slow June and July months for football coaches. That would not have been the case if he continued doing double duty.
"I feel the timing is right," Robinson said. "This is kind of the quiet time of the year. We're going into the summer. We felt like this was the best time to do it."
Robinson said he would like to spend a couple of weeks in Hawaii next month with his wife "if she can travel. That is what our plan is right now."
Regent Mark Alden, who was an outspoken critic at the time of Robinson's hiring as athletic director because he felt it was too difficult to ask one person to perform both head football coaching and athletic director duties, had nothing but praise for the job Robinson performed.
"We owe him a lot, a tremedous amount of gratitude for all that he's done," Alden said. "He's done 17 months of Superman work. But you can only be Superman for so long. I think the reason he did it is because he cares so much for the coaches and the people he works with over there."
"John, from the perspective of another coach, was perfect to work with," Rebel basketball coach Charlie Spoonhour said. "He'd give you some good advice and then get out of the way. I found him to be supportive but not intrusive."
Although there had been whispers around the Lied Athletic Complex since his heart attack that Robinson would eventually cut back his work load, Tuesday's annoucement caught Spoonhour by surprise.
"Truthfully, I didn't see this coming," Spoonhour said. "John, even after he had his health problems, was so resilent and has so much energy. He's an amazing man. I knew Linda had some health problems, but I didn't know she was continuing to not feel well. I understand completely his thinking."
As for how much longer he'll continue his head football coaching duties, Robinson said he'll decide that on a year-by-year basis.
"Coaches' lives, no matter what the contract says, you're there for this team and this season," he said. "I don't know what's going on as far as time. I'll take it one year at a time."
But Robinson made it clear he is looking forward to the start of fall practice in August.
"I think we have the best team since I've been here," Robinson said. I very much regret that John has to do this. But I completely understand and support it."
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