Limelight for Oregon State’s Robinson

Published 11:37 pm Friday, January 16, 2009

There was a time when Craig Robinson was the big name in his family.

As a standout at Princeton, Robinson, now in his first season as Oregon State’s head coach, was a two-time Ivy League player of the year. He went on to be drafted in the fourth round of the 1983 NBA draft and later played professionally in Europe.

Now, however, as Robinson prepares the Beavers to face Washington tonight in Corvallis, he does so while running a distant second to his little sister in the family fame department.

That’s because little sister Michelle Robinson is now Michelle Obama, the wife of Barack Obama, who will be sworn in as President of the United States on Tuesday. That makes the Oregon State head coach the soon-to-be first brother-in-law.

After tonight’s game, Robinson will stick around for a Sunday practice, then spend Monday traveling to Washington D.C. to witness the inauguration. He’ll fly directly from D.C. to the Bay Area for his team’s game against California on Thursday. As much as Robinson has been asked about his famous in-law, he sounds almost nonchalant when he answers questions on the topic. However, when he takes a moment to reflect, he admits that Tuesday indeed will be a special moment for his family.

“I guess I’ve been talking about it so much that it sounds like it’s routine, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to be a part of it,” Robinson said earlier this week during the Pac-10 coaches teleconference. “I’m just glad it fell during a time where I could make it. It is truly a humbling and honoring experience to be a part of as a citizen of the United States, let a lone the fact that the principles are family members.”

Robinson, who has many times played in pickup games with Obama, is, like his brother-in-law, taking on a daunting task this year. While fixing Oregon State basketball is not nearly as serious a challenge as running the country, it might seem as difficult to Robinson.

The Beavers went 0-18 last year in Pacific-10 Conference play, leading to an in-season firing of coach Jay John. In the offseason, the Beavers hired Robinson, who had spent the past two years turning around the basketball program at Brown.

Oregon State already got its first Pac-10 win out of the way, knocking off USC in overtime in their second conference game, earning him a call of congratulations from the president-elect. The Beavers’ last league victory had come against Washington on Feb. 22, 2007, which was shortly after Obama announced his candidacy for president. It took the Beavers an entire presidential campaign, and election, and a coaching change before they won a Pac-10 game again.

While certainly an improved team under Robinson, the Beavers still have struggled this season — they have a 6-9 record and are 1-4 in league play. They played Washington State tough Thursday before falling in overtime.

But even if Robinson turns the Beavers into a Pac-10 power, he knows he’ll also continue to get attention because of his ties to the White House. Rather than avoid talking about his famous family, however, Robinson embraces the subject, noting that more publicity is good for a down-on-its luck program.

“Rather than have it be the elephant in the room that everybody is trying to avoid talking about, I’ve always found that, especially in our family, you talk about things that are going on — kind of deal with what you have to deal with,” Robinson said. “It’s great publicity for Oregon State. It’s probably been 99 percent positive.”

Brockman on his record: Husky senior forward Jon Brockman broke the school record for career rebounds in Thursday’s win over Oregon, though there wasn’t any fanfare when it happened. Brockman didn’t know he had broken the record when he did so midway through the second half, and wasn’t sure he had it until Lorenzo Romar told him after the game.

“It really hasn’t hit me yet, and I don’t know if it will for a long time,” he said. “It’s cool, it’s a great honor, but it is good to kind of get it out of the way and see if I can add to it a little bit.”

Brockman didn’t enjoy his record-setting day as much as he would have liked because he was unhappy with his individual play.

“I was pumped, I was unbelievably excited for our team, but I put our slow start in the first half on my shoulders,” he said.

Thinking sweep: If the Huskies can pull out a win tonight, they’ll be 3-0 on the road in Pac-10 play, which should help ease the pain of last weekend’s triple-overtime loss to California.

“It definitely is something that we need to think about how good of a position it will put us in if we can get a sweep on the road,” Brockman said. “There are probably only three or four of us here that really understand how big a sweep on the road is in the Pac-10. They don’t come around very often at all. It would put us in a great position and get our minds in the right spot.”

The experience of players such as Brockman, Justin Dentmon, and Quincy Pondexter has been a big reason for the improved road play so far, but Romar also said the play of freshman guard Isaiah Thomas has led to the improvement away from Seattle.

“The experience definitely helps, that is always a big deal,” Romar said. “And it helps having a guy like Isaiah Thomas that, when you’re on the road and teams are really doing a good job guarding you and playing with a lot of energy, he can just break defenses down. He did it in the Washington State game — he scored or assisted on 15 of our first 17 points. That makes a big difference and we did not have that last year.”

Herald Writer John Boyle: jboyle@heraldnet.com. For more on UW sports, check out the Huskies blog at heraldnet.com /huskiesblog