The San Diego high school star will never forget the night John Robinson came to recruit him to USC.

Due to a power outage, all the lights in the area were out.

No problem. Robinson provided all the energy anyone would need.

“We had to break out the candles,” Marcus Allen remembers. “We sat there in our living room by candlelight, and John was as charismatic and funny as ever.”

That night not only launched a legendary playing career, but also a Hall of Fame friendship.

“I’m just glad he knew — and I told this to his wife — that every time I saw him I told him I loved him,” said Allen, whose career accomplishments include a Heisman Trophy season and Super Bowl most valuable player. honor and a bronze bust in Canton, Ohio. “I loved him, and I think he knew that.”

Rams’ coach John Robinson and Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka talk before the 1986 NFC Championship.

(Rob Kozloff/Associated Press)

In that regard, Allen was a face in the crowd. Robinson, who died Monday at the age of 89, was loved by his players and beyond. They can list his accomplishments at USC and the Rams — a national championship, four Rose Bowl wins, two trips to the NFC title game — but appreciate more who Robinson was as a person.

“Even playing against him, I wanted to show him the heart and passion that he instilled in me,” said Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott, a USC star who later faced Robinson’s Rams teams as the center of the San Francisco 49ers defense. “I remember when I made a hit, he would stand on the sideline and wag his finger at me. I thought, ‘You made this.’”

The mark Robinson left on the lives of his players was indelible.

“John made us believe we could do anything,” Allen said. “He never compared USC to any other university. He always said if the Rams wanted to play with us, we’d meet them in the parking lot. ‘Just name the place and time and we will be there.’”

That opinion was lofty, the man was not. He was incredibly accessible to his players, reprimanding them if they didn’t stop by his office to say hello as they wandered through Heritage Hall.

Future Hall of Fame offensive tackle Anthony Munoz remembers his coach sticking up for him at the training table in the late 1970s when teammates playfully poked him about his long hair.

Then there was the time Robinson made the 40-mile drive east of USC to chauffeur Munoz to the first day of his senior year at Chaffey High in Ontario. The riding gun was USC baseball coach Rod Dedeaux, as the hulking Munoz was also a prized baseball recruit who pitched for the Trojans on a national championship team.

“I’ll never forget sitting in my house and all of a sudden this big Cardinal Cadillac came up,” Munoz said. “He said, ‘Come on, Moon, we’re going to give you a ride to school.’ So I said, ‘Oh, yes.’ I get in and Dedeaux gets in the backseat and the first thing (Robinson) does is says, ‘Here’s something to get you ready for school today.’ He adds eight songs and it’s the USC marching band.

“I don’t think I can tell you what happened that day, what I did at school or anything like that. I was just thinking about Conquest and Fight On.”

Rams owner Georgia Frontiere and coach John Robinson welcome Eric Dickerson to the Rams.

(Gary Ambrose/Los Angeles Times)

Then there was the one that got away – temporarily. Robinson recruited running back Eric Dickerson out of high school but was unable to lure him to USC. Robinson was with the Rams in 1983 when they used the No. 2 pick on the star running back from Southern Methodist.

“I finally got you,” Robinson announced at Dickerson’s introductory press conference.

Dickerson, the Hall of Famer who set the NFL’s rookie rushing record and the league’s single-season rushing record the following season, was traded to Indianapolis after 4½ seasons.

“I really feel like if we had kept that Rams team together, we would have won one or maybe two Super Bowls,” Dickerson said.

Even in the last decade of his life, Robinson was still contributing to college football. When former USC coach Ed Orgeron guided Louisiana State to a national championship in 2019, he brought in Robinson as an advisor.

“He brought a lot of knowledge and intuition to our coaches and players,” Orgeron told the Times’ Gary Klein. “Everyone loved him.”

The same goes for the pros.

“John Robinson was hands down my favorite head coach of all time,” said former Rams quarterback Jim Everett. “His ability to communicate with men was a sight to behold. He treated us all like family…

“I really feel like he would have been a pro champion if the Rams had given him personal decisions, but that never happened and that fact drove him crazy.”

Some of Robinson’s favorite times in the NFL were as a second set of football eyes for his best friend and iconic broadcaster John Madden, when the two would tour the country in the Madden Cruiser.

Those two grew up in South San Francisco as fifth graders at Our Lady of Perpetual Help.

“Just two doofuses from Daly City,” Robinson told the Times in 2021, shortly after Madden’s death.

Eternal helpers, both of them. Two “doofuses” who have left quite a legacy.