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Weekly 150

James ‘Mr. Jim’ Robins

Builder of Men

Posted

After flipping through the archives and old newspaper clippings, I found something of interest about James Robins the former principal of the McTyeire School in McKenzie. I decided to use Google to see if anything popped up about Jim Robins. Naturally there was plenty of results about “Mr. Jim” has the principal but then I searched Jim Robins with Vanderbilt and hit pay dirt.
Much to my surprise the University of Vanderbilt named an award after Jim Robins. The Vanderbilt website states, “the James A. Robins award is given annually to perpetuate the memory of Jim Robins, class of 1892, whose life and teaching exemplified selfless devotion to learning, to honor, to participate in sports and service to youth and Vanderbilt. ‘Mr. Jim’ became a Latin and Greek professor and it is said he never missed a game and even attended some practice sessions. This award has been presented for 55 years to the senior student-athlete in whose life these virtues are most evident. A plaque hangs on the first floor of the Sarratt Student center beyond the Baseball Glove Lounge to celebrate this award and honor the legacy of Jim Robins.”
From various newspaper clippings, Robins was on the first football team at Vanderbilt in 1890. A fact worth noting, Vanderbilt and the University of Nashville played the first college football game in the state of Tennessee in 1890.
Robins had a true passion for education and a love for Vanderbilt. After retiring from McTyeire in 1931, he returned to Nashville and became a fixture on the Vanderbilt campus. It was said that Robins sat on the bench at home football games, often accompanied the team to away games, and rarely missed practice.
Ray Morrison recalled, “one day in the football dressing room at the stadium a player remarked that he was having trouble understanding his college algebra. ‘Mr. Jim’ heard him and took him in the coaches’ room and there on the blackboard instructed him for half an hour. The boy later told the coach he learned more algebra in that thirty minutes than he had in the fall term.”
For those who are not familiar with the name Ray Morrison. Morrison was as graduate of McTyeire School who played quarterback at Vanderbilt, then became the first head football coach at Southern Methodist University (SMU), he also served as head football coach at his alma mater Vanderbilt and later went on to coach at Temple and Austin College.
Robins’ passion was noted by his students along with his distaste for keeping up with the time of day over his tenure:
“The members of the senior class of the McTyeire School would be sitting – if it was a mild October – out in the open in our split bottom chairs, perhaps discussing a difficult passage in the Virgil assignment, or more likely, speculating on how we were going to come out of the football game with our old rival, McFerrin, next Saturday. Then someone would sight “Mr. Jim” walking up the hill, his bird glasses in hand, a little late today, but not hurrying to take charge of our Latin class: the headmaster never hurried. Someone would sign out, “Fourth year Latin is up; Fourth year Latin’s up.”
During a homecoming celebration Robins was given a watch in honor of his service as headmaster. In an article about the celebration, the Press-Scimitar noted the gifted watch was considered utterly useless...as principal, Mr. Jim had little respect for the time of day. Classes began when the teachers were read and ended when they were completed. The only use the school had for a timepiece was to mark off the 15-minute periods in football games.”

Robins was so admired and respected that on his 90th birthday, President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent him a telegram:
“I hope you will permit me to join with your friends and former students in felicitations on your 90th year and on your splendid record of teaching and inspiration you have been to so many people. My very best wishes for your continued health and happiness.”
American literary critic and professor Cleanth Brooks wrote of his old headmaster, “I see him now as a saint, one of that not inconceivable band of provincial saints that the South produced around the turn on the last century, the kind that often impress only a small group of people in a small community and who are soon forgotten, because they left no permanent work. They did not publish a book nor build a building. They worked in a more fragile and impermanent material, for they worked to build men.”
That seems to be very true of Mr. Jim. He was a builder of men, he loved his school, his students and his Commodores.

Jason R. Martin
B.S. • M.A.Ed • MLS
Councilman, Ward II
Executive Chairman, McKenzie 150th Celebration
E: jmartin@mckenziebanner.com  P: 731.352.3323

Jason Martin is a life-long resident of McKenzie. He graduated from McKenzie High School in 2000; earned a Bachelor of Science in History from Bethel College in 2004; a Masters in Education from Bethel University in 2009 and a Masters in History and Humanities from Fort Hays State University in 2011.

Weekly 150, McKenzie, Archives