Jay Robinson obit

J Robinson, who coached the Gophers to three NCAA team titles, has died

 

He was not on the list.

J Robinson, who coached Minnesota wrestling for 30 years and brought three national titles to Dinkytown, has died, the UMN’s wrestling program announced Sunday evening on social media. He was 79 years old.

From 1986 to 2016, Robinson coached 14 Gophers wrestlers to NCAA individual championships, and his team won NCAA titles in 2001, 2002 and 2007). In 2005, he was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame “in recognition of his dynamic contributions to the sport of wrestling.”

According to the UMN, Robinson coached 65 wrestlers to a total of 126 All-America honors, including a record 10 on the 2001 national championship team.

A graduate of Oklahoma State who served in Vietnam as an Army Ranger, Robinson also competed in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling. Before joining the Minnesota program, he was an assistant coach under Dan Gable at Iowa, where he worked on a master’s degree.

He was a wildly successful coach at Minnesota, where he also created and ran a popular wrestling camp, but was forced out at the U after a drug scandal with his wrestlers in the 2015-16 season.

Robinson often courted controversy and was a critic of Title IX, the federal law that requires schools receiving federal funds to provide equal opportunities for men and women.

In June 2016, he was placed on paid leave in June 2016 after an investigation by the school’s General Counsel’s Office found he had failed to fully share his suspicions that several of his wrestlers were using and selling the prescription anti-anxiety drug Xanax.

He tried to retain his job but was fired Sept. 7, 2016.

As a Greco-Roman wrestler in the 82 kilogram weight class, Robinson finished 4th at the 1970 World Championships, held in Edmonton, Canada. He finished 5th at the 1971 World Championships in Sofia, Bulgaria. Robinson was also on the USA Greco-Roman Olympic team at the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany.

After his competitive career, Robinson would later serve as the head wrestling coach at the University of Minnesota for 30 years until his termination on 7 September 2016, following an investigation into a prescription drug scandal that involved the Golden Gophers wrestling program.

During his tenure from 1986 to 2016, Minnesota won three national championships (2001, 2002, 2007), six Big Ten championships (1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007), and had 14 individual national champions.