Friends of Basketball

Don Robinson

Year Inducted: 1995

Category: Friends of Basketball

Schools / Organizations: IHSA
Savanna High School
(Ottawa) Marquette High School
Bradley-Bourbonnais High School

Biography:

Don Robinson made tremendous contributions to the Illinois High School Association’s March Madness, both as a basketball official and as a member of the IHSA staff.

From 1961 until he retired to honorary status in 1979, Robinson was an outstanding basketball referee, who achieved certified status and worked several sectional tournaments.  He was headed toward assignment to the state tournament when he became a member of the IHSA administrative staff in 1978.  Since then, he was the administrator in charge of basketball and also in charge of the IHSA officials department.

Under his leadership, the IHSA launched the “Pack the Place” promotion in 1987 that  involved nearly 500 of the IhSA’s 755 member schools over the first eight years of the program.

Under Robinson’s leadership, the IHSA expanded the impact of the state basketball tournaments to more than 375 different boys and girls by creating the skills competitions, which became crowd-pleasing attractions.  Robinson’s introduction of the IBCA boys and girls All-State first team members has become a regular  part of the final session of the state tournaments.  Robinson helped the IHSA expand its recruitment and training of basketball officials, an effort that continues today.

Robinson, the associate executive director of the IHSA at the time of his induction, served as a teacher-coach from 1963 to 1972 at Savanna, Ottawa Marquette and Bradley-Bourbonnais High Schools.  From 1972 to 1978, he worked as assistant director and director of student affairs at Bradley-Bourbonnais High School.

Don Robinson died on January 30, 2011 at the age of 72.