From Phenix City to Southern Cal, Tommie Robinson has a story to tell

Wednesday afternoon, sitting outside a downtown Columbus coffee shop, Tommie Robinson didn’t look like the highest paid running backs coach in college football.

And he sure didn’t look like a West Coast guy. There was no hint of Southern Cal in his summer wardrobe.

He was pure south Phenix City, down to his shorts, blue shirt and Nike cap. He may have just bought a home in the hills of Palos Verdes, Calif., just outside Los Angeles, with a view of the Pacific Ocean, but that isn’t who he is when he’s back home.

“I stay at my mother’s house and everything is the same,” Robinson said. “South Phenix City — ain’t nothing like it. South Phenix City is God’s country.”

It isn’t a show. It’s as real as his degrees from Central High School and Troy State University. At 53, Robinson knows who he is and where he came from.

“This is home,” he said about a week away from packing up and heading back to LA to begin his second stint with the Trojans. “When people I work with go on vacation, they go to the Bahamas, Aruba, Hawaii, Alaska and all out West. Me? I come to Phenix City. That’s who I am.”

If Phenix City is home, Southern Cal has become a place that feels a little like home, Robinson said. He spent a year there under then-Coach Lane Kiffin in 2013. When Kiffin got fired, Robinson landed at the University of Texas. After two years, Robinson took an offer to go back to Southern Cal.

“Going back to Los Angeles, I felt like I was going home,” Robinson said. “That is just how comfortable I am there.”

He laughs when asked to compare Phenix City to Los Angeles.

“You don’t think Phenix City and Los Angeles have any common denominators?” he asked.

Then he found one.

“The sun comes up in both places,” he jokes.

Then he just laughs.

Ask him about being the highest paid running backs coach in the college game and he just starts to laugh, a rolling comfortable laughter that undoubtedly has put high-profile college recruits and their parents at ease over his successful three-decade career.

“That’s what they say, huh?” Robinson said, through the laughter.

Yeah, coach. That’s what they say.

Among other places, he has coached at Texas, Miami, Georgia Tech, Texas Christian, Utah State and Troy, but this will be the first time he’s seen Alabama on the other side. He’s has even coached in the NFL with the Dallas Cowboys and Arizona Cardinals.

But that is the story of Tommie Robinson, an incredible football journey.

But in a few weeks, the laughter will stop. His Southern Cal Trojans open with Alabama on Sept. 3 in Arlington, Texas. Robinson grew up a big Alabama fan as he watched Woodrow Lowe, his brother-in-law Eddie Lowe, Billy Jackson, Jeremiah Castille and many others flow through the Phenix City to Tuscaloosa pipeline.

“I have been to every state in the United States — except Alaska — because of football,” Robinson said. “But out of all of those places I have gone, there is nothing more important to me than Phenix City, Alabama.”

And when Alabama and Southern Cal meet in a little more than six weeks, there will be a lot of home on that field, Robinson said.

“When I was at SC the last time, one of the traditions is when you walk in the stadium while still in your suit, you walk to the 50-yard-line, make a huge circle and one guy stands out in the middle and prays,” Robinson said. “Well, that one guy was me.”

USC Coach Clay Helton told Robinson he will be leading the prayers again this season. That first game he will be praying against an old friend, Castille, who is the chaplain of the Alabama football team.

“I will pray for the USC team and Jeremiah Castille will pray for the Alabama team,” Robinson said, laughing again. “So the prayers for that game in Dallas, Texas, will come straight from Phenix City, Alabama.”

Just as they should if Tommie Robinson is in the middle of it.

This story was originally published July 20, 2016 at 5:48 PM with the headline "From Phenix City to Southern Cal, Tommie Robinson has a story to tell."