Jul 24, 2009 4 min read

If not for a boundary line, an imaginary line drawn down the middle of a street, Fayette County Sports Hall of Famer Wil Robinson would have been inducted as a Red Raider instead of as a Mustang. Rest assured, a talent like Robinson’s would have been inducted with the inaugural class regardless of whether he wore maroon and white or red, white and blue. But the story is an interesting and important part of local lore, especially as it pertains to the year-old local Hall of Fame.

“I came here from Pittsburgh before my sophomore year,” Robinson said. “I came to live with my dad and he wanted me to go to Uniontown. But he lived on Cycle Avenue and one side of that street went to Uniontown and the other side – the side he lived on – went to Laurel Highlands.”

Instead of growing up a Red Raider, Robinson soon became a proud Mustang.

“Once I met Horse Taylor, I knew I was in the right place,” Robinson said. “He introduced me to Jeff Collier and Binky Martin and Brent Watson and all of the other great players we had and it became a bond. I wasn’t a leader then, not of that ’67 team. Those guys were the leaders, but they gave me the insight to become a leader.

“Actually, we thought – and we still think – we should have won state two years in a row. We should have taken it in ’67, but once that season ended (in a triple-overtime playoff loss to Mount Lebanon), we made a promise to do all we could to win it the next year.”

Some of you may not remember, but Robinson came into the Uniontown-LH rivalry at the beginning. That 1967 team Robinson mentioned was the first to don a Laurel Highlands uniform after the jointure of North Union and South Union high schools.

So it isn’t so ironic that Robinson, who came to Fayette County already possessing outstanding basketball skills, got his start in the area courtesy of some of the greatest names ever to play the game in this area.

“East End,” Robinson said, pausing for effect to make sure he paid homage to what he calls the greatest learning experience of his basketball life. “Playing there made me better. The competition there was so intense that it had to make you better. I started going there my sophomore year and I was working with guys like Pat Yates and Ray Parson. That’s what got me started.”

Robinson was about four years younger than those two stalwarts on Uniontown’s 1964 PIAA champions, but that didn’t discourage him from coming back to East End day after day, night after night. In fact, it’s what kept him coming back for more.

At the banquet last weekend, Robinson related a story about Yates’ brother, Don, who went for the gold a few years before Pat with the 1962 Red Raider title team. Robinson likely had either seen or heard about Don Yates, but never met him until Hall of Fame Weekend rolled around.

Meeting Don Yates was one of the many highlights of an outstanding weekend for Robinson and the other inductees and it wasn’t lost on Robinson that not only was he inducted into the local Hall of Fame, but that he was inducted into the first class.

“I had no idea I would even be considered,” Robinson said. “How honored I am that people around here thought so much of me that they included me in the first class. I was always confident in what I did as a player, but not to the point that I ever expected anything like this.”

Wil Robinson deserves to be there, no matter which side of the street he lived on.

Sports editor Mike Ciarochi may be reached at mciarochi@heraldstandard.com