Celebrating the life of a ‘pioneer’ coach
Robert Stearnes, who died March 28, was first black head coach of a Gary high school football team other than Roosevelt
Robert Stearnes, who died March 28, was the first black head coach of a Gary high school football team other than Roosevelt. He was also a great athlete and leader for black coaches.
Fred Mitchell was a skinny 14-year-old freshman at Tolleston, kicking footballs on the baseball field during gym class, when Robert Stearnes spotted him.
Mitchell, a retired Chicago Tribune sportswriter, said he was launching the ball about 45 yards over the outfield wall.
Stearnes, the Tolleston football coach, saw him and designated him the field-goal kicker on the spot. Mitchell later kicked at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, where he became one of the best college kickers in the country and earned Lutheran College AllAmerica honors.
It all started in 1962 with Stearnes, who died March 28 in DeKalb, Illinois. He was 87.
Mitchell said he weighed maybe 150 pounds in ’62, but Stearnes made him into a tackle. He couldn’t list Mitchell as a kicker.
“There was no such thing as a kicking specialist back then,” Mitchell said. “I was his secret weapon.”
Stearnes was a great athlete and a leader for black coaches in Gary.
Stearnes, who graduated from Roosevelt in 1951, played quarterback for three seasons. He led the Panthers to their first city title in 1950. He earned a scholarship to Iowa, where he was a four-year letterman, according to the Iowa football media guide.
Stearnes also played basketball and ran track at Roosevelt. He was on the half-mile relay team that finished first in the state in 1951, when Roosevelt also won the team title.
Earl Smith Jr., the former Gary city athletic director, played football with Stearnes at Iowa. Smith graduated from Roosevelt in 1952. Both were running backs.
Smith said Stearnes should’ve played quarterback at Iowa. He said Stearnes was the first black all-state quarterback in Indiana high school football.
“It was disturbing that he was moved to running back,” Smith said. “They just stacked all the black players behind each other in the backfield. He never got a chance to emerge as a quarterback. If he had, we probably would’ve won more games. That was just a generation where they didn’t have blacks playing that position.”
Elmer Edwards, who played end on Roosevelt’s 1950 team, said the left-handed Stearnes was a classic run-pass quarterback.
“He could roll out left or right and throw the ball,” Edwards said. “He was very shifty, though, and he wasn’t afraid to put his shoulder down and take you on.”
When Stearnes returned to Gary, he worked at Roosevelt before he was hired at Tolleston. He was the first black football head coach to work at a Gary school other than Roosevelt.
“He was a pioneer for black coaches,” Smith said. “We couldn’t all work at Roosevelt. We were physical education teachers. There weren’t enough jobs for us. He was a trailblazer.”
Stearnes left Tolleston to work as the associate director of the CHANCE program at Northern Illinois. That program helped economically disadvantaged students get into college.
In 2017, Stearnes was inducted into the Indiana Football Hall of Fame.
Mitchell told his best Stearnes story at the induction.
Tolleston was trailing Valparaiso 14-0 at halftime of a game in 1964 when Stearnes gave “us a version of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech,” Mitchell recalled. Stearnes got so riled up that he lifted Art Laster, a 280-pound tackle who later played for the Bills, and threw him against a locker to “make a point,” Mitchell said.
The Blue Raiders rallied in the second half for a 22-21 victory. Mitchell kicked a 38-yard field goal in the final minutes for the win.
Those memories are still fresh and relevant for Mitchell, who considered Stearnes one of his greatest mentors.
“He was really inspirational,” Mitchell said.