First Lady Michelle Obama’s brother, Craig Robinson, relieved of his duties last season as Oregon State University’s head coach, left behind serious damage that lingers long after his departure.
Robinson served as head coach of the Oregon State Beavers for six years, during which time the team went 39-69 in the Pac 12 and made neither the NCAA Tournament nor the NIT.
Not only did Obama’s brother leave the team with a terrible record, as Brent Scher notes at the Free Beacon, he also left a team to his successor without a single player averaging four points a game.
By comparison, in the short time he’s been leading at Oregon, new head coach Wayne Tinkle has made great headway in rebuilding the team even as he was left with a tall mountain to climb.
The new coach has received much applause for his hard work rebuilding the team and was even named a semi-finalist for the Naismith Men’s College Coach of the Year Award.
Tinkle, for instance, has succeeded in getting three of the top 150 recruits in the country to sign on with Oregon State next season, something that Robinson couldn’t achieve in six years.
In fact, Robinson couldn’t even gain top recruits even though he offered his political connections as a justification for his being hired.
“Robinson just couldn’t deliver on any of his promises when he was hired,” Register-Guard sports reporter Benjamin Schorzman recently said. “Frankly I think his relationship to the Obamas was the only reason he lasted six years because Oregon State was middling to bad every year.”
The former coach’s three predecessors, though, also fell short of a .500 record during their tenures. Oregon State, historically a solid basketball program, lost its way before Robinson’s arrival in Corvallis. Though the school played in sixteen different NCAA tournaments, none of those appearances came in the last 25 seasons.
Robinson, who reportedly lost out on the Holy Cross job to his former boss at Northwestern Bill Carmody, boasts two winning seasons in his eight years coaching Brown and Oregon State. He enjoyed more success as a player. The six-foot, six-inch forward won Ivy League Player of the Year twice and the Philadelphia 76ers drafted him in 1983.
The First Lady’s brother, who was paid almost a million dollars a year and given a four million dollar separation package, has been an ESPN analyst since he left Oregon.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.