Barret Robbins sits on the Raiders' bench in 2003 during his last season with the club.
A.P. Photo
Barret Robbins sits on the Raiders' bench in 2003 during his last season with the club.
The first time I talked to Barret Robbins was in a temporary Raiders locker room in 1996 at their practice facility in Alameda.
He hadn’t started as a rookie center, a second-round draft pick out of Texas Christian. Now the starting position was his. Robbins had a baseball background as a catcher. I asked him about it, and he pulled up a chair for me and rose from his own chair and demonstrated the footwork which was similar for a center and a catcher.
The last time I spoke to Robbins, who died Thursday at age 52, was on Oct. 14, 2014 at an impromptu interview. In the interim, Robbins had become an established starter and reached the pinnacle of his career just moments before his life imploded in the two days leading up to Super Bowl XXXVII in San Diego.
During the week-long media barrage, Robbins seemed to be enjoying himself. But on Thursday of game week, the last day players can be interviewed, Robbins sat at a table by himself wearing dark glasses and didn’t have much to say. In between that access and Saturday night, Robbins was AWOL and became a national story and punchline.
Robbins was suspended by coach Bill Callahan, dispatched to the Betty Ford Center for rehab, and the Raiders lost 48-21 to Jon Gruden’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Robbins made it back in 2003, but had battled depression, bi-polar disorder, alcoholism, recreational drugs, performance enhancing drugs and his own bad judgement for years. He was cut after a positive test for “The Clear” — a steroid engineered by the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative (BALCO). He was out of football and out of control
Arrested once for fighting a security guard outside a San Francisco hotel in 2004, Robbins was later shot multiple times by a police officer in Miami Beach a year later in what was described as a violent attack.
Robbins lived through it, made multiple attempts at rehab. Was incarcerated for violating probation and other offenses. He did an interview with Greg Papa and NBC Sports Bay Area in 2011, only part of which was aired nine years later.
When he was released from the Dade County Correctional Institution in 2012, Robbins angrily snapped at a cameraman attempting to film him as he walked to a waiting car.
With that as a backdrop, my wife called from work as a school district public information officer to tell me Robbins had surfaced at a nearby high school and was working with children at a Special Olympics event. Out of nowhere, Barret Robbins was at my doorstep.
So I grabbed my tape recorder and notebook and walked over to the school, wondering what kind of greeting was in store. Robbins, then 41, was wearing a black shirt, a ballcap and shorts. He spotted me in the track area and actually seemed happy I was there.
Robbins cheerfully agreed to talk, so long as it wasn’t a rehash of of his drunken trip to Tijuana and missing the Super Bowl. He said he was visiting a friend who lived at local military base and was enjoying working with kids with serious challenges of their own who had no idea who he was or what he’d been through.
“They have appreciation for the smallest thing,” Robbins said. “It’s amazing.”
Robbins talked of his recovery and how the violent nature of the sport he loved contributed to his other issues. He said he learned at the Eisenhower Center in Michigan that repeated head trauma was as much a part of the equation as the drug, alcohol and bi-polar issues.
OAKLAND, CA - JANUARY 19: Center Barret Robbins #63 of the Oakland Raiders prepares to snap during the AFC Championship game against the Tennessee Titans at Network Associates Coliseum on January 19, 2003 in Oakland, California. The Raiders defeated the Titans 41-24, sending them on to the NFL title game for the first time since 1984. (Photo by Brian Bahr/Getty Images)
Barret Robbins centers the ball for the Raiders against the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Championship game following the 2002 season. Getty Images
In getting involved with BALCO, Robbins was in a sense training his body to hit even harder, putting his brain at even more risk for further concussive injury.
“You’re taught to play through that, and it does accumulate,” Robbins said. “I can remember at least 10 times through high school, college and pros, being concussed. Had those dark feelings, really scary deep thoughts.
“It was never one of those, `how many fingers do you see’ moments. As an offensive lineman, you’re taught to come back after you get hit. You don’t start playing until you get dinged up. Then you get into the world of drugs, and that mentality becomes almost natural.”
Robbins said his primary objective was reconnecting with his daughters, who were then 15 and 13 and are now 27 and 25.
“I’ve put so many things in front of my daughters right now, and it kills me,” Robbins said. “Now I’ve got the priorities right to where they’re back in my life.”
One thing Robbins didn’t do was reach out to former teammates for support.
“I wasn’t around ‘em. The things I was going through, I wasn’t going to try and bother them,” Robbins said. “I had issues. And that’s the hardest part about losing football as a career and in your life is you don’t have that camaraderie with your teammates. But I wouldn’t blame it on anybody else. I would blame it on my isolation and my issues. There are definitely people there that care that I wasn’t in touch with.”
Upon seeing the story I wrote on the chance meeting with Robbins, former Raiders quarterback Rich Gannon sent me a text asking if I had a number for him.
Except as the interview concluded, I gave Robbins my number and he didn’t offer one in return. Gannon said he’d try to find another way to reach out. I’m not sure if he ever did. Robbins retreated from the public eye except for a few instances in Florida where he ran into troubles with the law.
Two years after we talked, Robbins was arrested for punching a mother and daughter outside a restaurant in Boca Raton, Fla.
There were very few instances in his life when Barret Robbins was at peace. Sadly, he’s at peace now.
If you or someone you know is struggling with challenges including anxiety, depression, and substance use, California Peer Run Warm Line provides free, confidential 24/7 peer-led, non-coercive, and stigma-reducing support. Call or text 855-600-WARM(9276) to speak with a counselor or see the CA Peer Run Warm Line website.
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