Obama tie a happy talking point for Oregon State's Robinson

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- I finally just asked Craig Robinson if he was tired of talking about it.

You know, talking about his brother-in-law.

That guy named Barack Obama.

Craig Robinson's connection to Barack Obama 'has been very helpful' for the Beavers. (AP)

Because I felt bad considering that when I decided to drive 80 miles from Portland to Oregon State in between games of the Nike Global Challenge to spend the afternoon with the Beavers' new coach, I promised myself I wouldn't spend that time discussing politics or begging for Obama stories. I just wasn't gonna do it. But then there I was on the couch in Robinson's office in Gill Coliseum staring at a magazine with -- if you believe the latest polls -- the next President of the United States on the cover, and suddenly I was asking about Barack and Michelle and the kids and Chicago and, my God, I was doing exactly what I swore I wouldn't do.

So I asked Robinson if he was tired of talking about it.

I asked if he ever got tired of talking about it over and over again.

"My staff thinks I should talk about it more," Robinson said. "It's been very helpful for us."

By now you know Craig Robinson's story. He's a Chicago native, an Ivy League legend, a Princeton graduate, the former coach at Brown and the new coach at Oregon State. And, yes, he's Michelle Obama's big brother. That's the most common way he's described, actually, and the main reason I'm writing about him because without the Obama angle, Robinson is just the guy taking over a bottom-tier Pac-10 school that went 0-18 in league games last season, and that's not the type of column I'm usually interested in writing.

And guess what?

None of this is news to Robinson.

Which is sort of the point of this column.

He knows he inherited a hard job that doesn't garner much attention. Still, he's conducting nearly three interviews a week because his sister is on track to replace Laura Bush as our First Lady. Reporters want to know about Barack and Michelle, so they call Robinson, put a camera in his face and ask questions. This has been going on for some time now. And though the interviews tend to be more about politics than power forwards, it's difficult not to notice how the recognition is helping Oregon State basketball in a major way.

"We're at the table with a lot of recruits because of the publicity I've received because of my family," Robinson said. "This kind of publicity allows me to call AAU coaches, and even if they don't know me, they will at least listen and get to know me, and right now I'd say 70 percent of the guys we're in with wouldn't be interested in us if they didn't know me because of my family.