The LHSAA took a moment Tuesday at its annual coaches clinic to salute Robin Fambrough, the Hall of Fame journalist whose August retirement will end a 34-year tenure as The Advocate’s prep sports beat writer.
A large crowd of high school coaches from across the state, seated in a Crowne Plaza ballroom for a Q&A session with LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey, greeted Fambrough with a standing ovation. Then LHSAA executive director Eddie Bonine asked Mulkey to present the veteran reporter with a replica championship trophy, complete with a personalized message of gratitude for the decades she spent covering high school sports in Louisiana.
“(Fambrough) epitomizes the word and phrase ‘high school athletics,' ’’ Bonine said. “It’s not just our championship games. It’s not just the regular-season games. She covers summer events as well, keeps track of everybody and does everything that we think we should do for high school sports. She’s done that professionally. A true sports writer.”
When Fambrough took the floor, she said it has been her “honor” to cover prep sports in Baton Rouge for as long as she has. She’s written uplifting and triumphant stories, she said, as well as some that were more tragic and heart-rending. Through it all, she developed a deep respect for the coaches who nurture the lives and careers of the Baton Rouge area's high school athletes.
“You are the people who made it possible,” Fambrough said. “I’m lucky to count a lot of people in this room as lifelong friends.”
Fambrough, 68, is an inductee into both the Louisiana High School Sports Hall of Fame (2019) and the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame (2020). In 2000, she was named the first female president of the Louisiana Sports Writers Association (LSWA). In 2022, she became the first woman to receive the National Sports Media Association’s Louisiana Sportswriter of the Year award.
In four different decades, Fambrough won the LSWA’s Prep Writer of the Year award.
The Louisville, Kentucky, native first moved to Louisiana in 1981. She worked for The Daily Comet in Thibodaux, The Town Talk in Alexandria and a newspaper in Hollywood, Florida, before The Advocate hired her to cover Baton Rouge high school sports in the fall of 1991.
Fambrough’s last day on that job is Aug. 1.
“God bless you all,” Fambrough said, “and keep doing what you’re doing because what you do at this level is so important for these kids. They need you, and don’t ever lose sight of that. I know there are tough times for all of us ... but we need you every day.”