Saturday, November 15, 2008

Craig Robinson in Wonderment

It must be pretty wild to wake up as the president of the U.S. I guess it feels the same for Obama's relatives.
WaPo: Robinson has spoken only briefly to his sister, Michelle, and President-elect Barack Obama since the historic election on Nov. 4. He hasn't had time to sit down with his wife, Kelly, and reflect. He has barely had any private time at all to process his own emotions. He's a first-year coach of a team that was 0-18 in the Pac-10 last season, and is knee-deep in his own challenge to reverse the culture of losing.

History in the Oval Office? "It's hard to get my arms wrapped around it," he said. "It feels like somebody has told me a joke, and I'm waiting for the punch line."

As Robinson himself put it, he already had vetted Obama as a brother-in-law 17 years ago, sizing him up on the basketball court, in long chats. "Which to me is harder than voting for a guy. I got one sister, and I gave him the seal of approval back when he was just coming out of law school talking about community organizing."

And now his brother-in-law will be running the country? "Forget about the being-related-to-him part. How about growing up as a black man in the United States, having a black president? . . . It's going to start to sink in . . . what that means and how that makes me feel about this country and all the people who went before him," he said. "I don't have any words for you yet because I want to let it marinate and digest a little bit." Read the rest