Michelle Obama Says Her Brother, Craig Robinson, Is Her "Protector"

From Oprah Magazine

• Michelle Obama wrote in her memoir Becoming that her brother, Craig Robinson, is her “protector” and the “best brother a sister could ask for.”

• Robinson, a basketball legend at Princeton who now works for the New York Knicks, appears in the documentary, Becoming, based on the memoir of the same name.

• When meeting former President Barack Obama for the first time, Robinson played a game of pickup basketball with him to judge if he was a good guy.

If you thought Michelle and Barack Obama were close, just wait until you meet her brother, Craig Robinson. Just two years older than Michelle and her only sibling, Robinson, now 58, is a very special person to the former First Lady. So special, in fact, he drew these words out of her when she penned her memoir, Becoming: “You have been my protector since the day I was born. You have made me laugh more than any other person on this earth. You are the best brother a sister could ask for, a loving and caring son, husband, and father.” [Wipes away tear.]

Robinson, along with a few of Mrs. Obama's other most valuable players, including her husband, daughters, and mother, make appearances in Obama's uplifting Netflix film, Becoming, a documentary based on the aforementioned memoir that chronicles her global book tour, meeting people from all walks of life, hearing their stories, and embracing every one of them along the way—you know, human stuff, i.e., the type of touchy-feely behavior we’re all prohibited from doing right now. Which means Becoming (available to stream May 6) and its uplifting stories of human connection, is coming at a perfect time.

Though the documentary does touch on Obama's childhood growing up on the South Side of Chicago, what it doesn’t dive too deep into, however, is Robinson. That’s where we come in. An Ivy League basketball legend—no, really, this guy set records at Princeton—Robinson went on to coach at multiple colleges including Oregon State University and has been shaping the roster of the New York Knicks since 2017. And it looks like the rock didn’t fall too far from the hoop: His daughter, Leslie Robinson, made history when she was drafted into the WNBA from Princeton. Ahead, more about Robinson and his impressive career and family.

Craig Robinson is a gifted Ivy League athlete who played basketball in the pros.

Physical fitness runs in the family. Growing up, sports were a linchpin in the Robinson household. So it’s no wonder Obama would go on to launch Let’s Move!, a campaign whose goal was to solve childhood obesity, while her husband was president. It’s also no wonder her brother would go on to earn the superlative of one of the best ball players to ever set foot on an Ivy League court.

According to Princeton records, Robinson led the League in field goal percentage as a junior and senior, and was crowned back-to-back Ivy League Player of the Year. He scored 1,441 points while he wore the Tigers jersey and was even selected in the fourth round of the NBA draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Although he never actually played in the American pros, he did, however, sign with the Manchester Giants in the United Kingdom’s professional league for two seasons before retiring.

Switching gears, he embarked on a career in banking.

Because, when you have brawn and brains, why not? Armed with a sociology degree from Princeton and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago, Robinson landed a job as a bond trader as vice president at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter.

But basketball was always his dream. So he went on to coach at Northwestern.

Robinson ultimately left his position as an investment banker and took a job as an assistant coach at Northwestern University, slashing his salary in the process.

“I was coaching part-time in youth leagues and high schools,” he told Inc. about the life-altering decision. “My business success, albeit good—in fact, maybe even grand by some measures—wasn’t bringing me the kind of pleasure and joy that I felt when I was coaching.”

About the same time, he got divorced from his first wife.

By 2000, Robinson was going through a ton of changes. Not only was he struggling with finances and child support after making the career jump, but he was in the throes of a divorce and back to living with his mom, Marian Obama. In an interview with Graham Bensinger, he opens up about how he picked himself back up.

His daughter, Leslie Robinson, is a WNBA star.

Before the dissolution of Robinson’s first marriage, the couple had two children together, a son, Avery in 1992, and daughter, Leslie in 1996. Impressive fact: Leslie would go on to play for the Princeton Tigers women’s basketball team as a forward. Even more impressive: She would become the first female to be drafted from Princeton and only the second from the Ivy League when the WNBA’s New York Liberty rang her.

“I’ve always wanted to play this game for as long as I can,” she said, per The Princetonian. “I love what I have gotten from it and the person it has helped me become, win or lose. I’ve gained so many friends and they have become my family.”

He also coached at Oregon State and Brown University.

After serving as assistant coach at Illinois’s Northwestern University from 2000 to 2006, Robinson went east to Rhode Island for a head coach promotion at Brown University, where he coached from 2006 to 2008. After that, Robinson flew cross-country to Oregon State University for another head coaching position, serving with the Beavers from 2008 to 2014.

He married his second wife, Kelly Mccrum, in 2006.

In 2006, Robinson found love again with New Jersey native Kelly Mccrum, a former education administrator for Brown University. The couple share two sons together, Austin, who was born in 2010, and Aaron, who came along in 2012.

In an interview with NPR, the subject of an interracial relationship came up. Robinson, whose first wife was African American and whose second wife is white, responded by saying, “They're two things I'd love to address with that. First of all, my mom and dad would have been appalled if I met someone like Kelly, my current wife, and she turned out to be as nice and as loving as she is and I didn't give her a chance just because she was white. My dad would've been all over me about the double standard. Just because you're Black doesn’t mean you can be prejudiced. That’s first and foremost."

“The second thing is, after my first marriage, I think my mom was so worried that I would never meet another woman. She was just glad that whoever was happy to get to know a 30-something year old guy who had just changed his career from investment banking to basketball coaching, living upstairs from his mom with two kids and bald headed. You know, she just thought oh, she likes him. She’s a keeper.”

Robinson is helping shape new generations of New York Knicks players.

Hired by the Milwaukee Bucks as the vice president of player and organizational development for the 2016/2017 season, Robinson has held the same role with the New York Knicks since 2017. And though we’re positive he could have dunked like Michael Jordan over the excitement of landing the gig, he told The Undefeated that it was his brother-in-law, who was most over the moon.

“My brother-in-law, Barack, the former president, is a huge basketball fan. He’s probably the most excited about my new position. My sister’s just happy that I’m happy and that my wife and kids are happy. I think Barack is very excited to see what we’re going to do with the Knicks.”

In addition to working behind the scenes, Robinson has landed analyst gigs with ESPN and CBS Sports.

He and Michelle are very, very close. She even wanted his opinion on her new boyfriend, Barack.

In her memoir, Obama writes that Robinson was her “protector” since the day she was born. During his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Robinson introduced his sister saying, “This is the person who used to play the piano to call me down before my big games in high school.” And according to The Washington Post, the siblings shared a room when they were younger, separated, of course, with a divider.

Search the internet long enough, and the anecdotes just keep coming. But our favorite proof that these two have a bond stronger than oak is when the former First Lady was getting her brother’s green light on her new relationship with Barack. “Craig’s opinion of Barack mattered to me and my brother knew how to read people, especially in the context of a game,” Obama wrote in Becoming. That game? Basketball, of course.

“I realized he wasn’t selfish,” Robinson said to the New York Post. “He wasn’t greedy. He showed character on the court. He called fouls and gave up fouls. You have to trust the guys you’re playing with in pickup, they’ll make the right call. He did all of that. I was able to get back to her and say, ‘He seems like a pretty good guy.’ The best thing about it I told her is he didn’t just pass me the ball because he was dating my sister.”

Michelle Obama says that he’s their mom's favorite.

Believe it or not, Obama swears that their mother, Marian, has Robinson on a pedestal—White House brownie points aren't a factor. During a joint appearance on Good Morning America, the former First Lady and her brother aired a little sibling rivalry. “I am the First Lady but my mother is like, ‘When is Craig coming?’” she said of her mom, who lived with them on Washington Avenue. “I’m like, ‘I live in the White House. What more do I have to do?’”

“I am the favorite,” Robinson simply quipped in return.

Though the two are cheekily tossing banter at one another for morning show fodder, Obama has claimed on more than one occasion that her parents have always shown a preference her brother—relegating her, whether consciously or not, to living in Robinson’s shadow. She even writes about it in her memoir. The subject is further explored in her Becoming film, though not with a salacious tone, but rather in the same loving and manicured lens the uplifting and inspirational film desires.

Marian, Craig, President Obama, and their daughters all make appearances in the film; her father, Fraser, however, does not, as he passed away in 1991 at the age of 55—the pain of his death, which Obama has described as leaving a “hole in her heart,” looms over the film. But trust us, it’s not all melancholic. Hope springs eternal, though we can’t promise it won’t leave you in a puddle of tears anyway.

Stream Becoming beginning Wednesday, May 6, on Netflix.

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