Before Michelle Obama's Video, Mr. Beaver
For the first time tonight, millions of Americans will meet Michelle Obama's brother, Craig Robinson, who will introduce a video about his sister that will be screened before her primetime address.
So who is Craig Robinson?
The first thing to know is that he is not the same Craig Robinson who plays Darryl, the warehouse manager on NBC's "The Office," and who was recently arrested and charged with felony drug possession.
The Craig Robinson who will speak tonight may end up famous in his own right, for reasons that have nothing to do with his brother-in-law's presidential campaign. The 46-year-old was chosen in April to serve as the head coach of the Oregon State University men's basketball team, a long dormant program that has sat at the bottom of the mighty Pac-10 pretty much since legendary coach Ralph Miller's retirement in 1989.
Robinson was hired away from Brown, where in two years he turned the bottom-feeder Ivy League school into a winner, guiding the Providence school to a 19-10 mark (11-3 in the Ivy) last season - Brown's best mark in decades. With OSU officials promising an increased investment in their hoops program, there is some hope among the Beaver faithful that Robinson will perform a similar turnaround job in Corvallis. In the '70s and '80s, Miller proved that winning was possible at OSU, racking up a 359-186 record, churning out eight NCAA tournament teams, and even landing the occasional star recruit, most famously Gary Payton. If Robinson, who runs a variation of the "Princeton offense" pioneered by his college coach, Pete Carril, does turn the Beavers into a winner, he'll quickly become a top prospect for a marquee college coaching job, or even a spot in the N.B.A.
Robinson's revival effort also creates the possibility - however remote - of Barack Obama becoming the first president since Bill Clinton in 1994 to attend the N.C.A.A. Final Four.
Not bad for a guy who came late to coaching after making his stake as an investment banker.
Coincidentally, the high point for Princeton during Craig Robinson's playing career came at Oregon State, when they defeated Big 8 champion Oklahoma State in Corvallis in the 1983 NCAA tournament. Craig was the Ivy League Player of the Year in his junior and senior seasons.
We have come a long way. Oregon State was a power house in the fifties, fielding lily white teams under coach Slats Gill. They regularly battled Seattle U. and S.F.U. (with Bill Russell) for the title of best west coast independent. Terry Baker became the answer to sports trivia questions when he won the Heisman and played in the final four the same year. A personal memory of mine from the sixties is seeing the national championship UCLA basket ball team with Sidney Wicks catching dinner at the Corvallis Dairy Queen. Best wishes to Robinson in bringing the Beavers back.
Robinson will eventually be best known as the person who made possible the legacy admission to Princeton of Michelle Obama.