Steve Robinson rejoined Kansas University’s men’s basketball staff on April 11.
But it wasn’t until last Saturday night that the 44-year-old Robinson welcomed his family wife, Lisa; and children, Tarron (13), Denzel (11), Kiaya (10) and Shauna (22) into their Alvamar home.
The Robinsons minus Steve, of course had spent the last eight weeks finishing the school year, selling the house and tying loose ends in Tallahassee, Fla., where Robinson worked as Florida State’s head basketball coach the past five seasons. He was Tulsa’s head coach two years before that.
The head-coaching stints following his first tenure as KU assistant coach from 1989 to ’95.
“It was really interesting on Sunday I got the chance to drive the kids around and have them see some things for the first time in seven years,” Robinson said Thursday from his office at Parrott Athletic Center. “We sort of retraced our steps. I took them to the first place we lived, the second place we lived and third place we lived, where they went to school. I tried to refresh their memories of how to get around town.
“We talked about the ‘Big Square,”‘ Robinson said of the major streets forming a box around the four corners of town. “The ‘Big Square’ has gotten bigger. I used to think of the ‘Big Square’ as Kasold, Massachusetts, Sixth and 23rd (streets). Now you are talking Wakarusa and Clinton Parkway. It’s the biggest square around now.”
A lot has changed since Robinson toiled as a member of KU coach Roy Williams’ original Jayhawk staff.
For one thing, his babies have started to grow up.
“One of the biggest things I remember is after a game you’d see Tarron on the (Allen Fieldhouse) basketball court shooting and Denzel running up and down the court with a basketball bigger than he was in his arms,” Robinson said.
Now, Denzel, a basketball fanatic already enrolled in programs at Sport2Sport, is about to enter the fifth grade at Sunflower Elementary School, while Tarron, slated to enter eighth grade at Southwest Junior High, is an accomplished first baseman/pitcher in baseball.
Tarron’s Tallahassee traveling team capped an undefeated summer of 2001 by winning a 48-team tournament in Cooperstown, N.Y.
Kiaya, set for fourth grade at Sunflower, is a soccer player who might see some basketball in her future.
Shauna, a former junior high hoopster in Lawrence, attended junior college last year in Tallahassee and is likely to continue her studies at KU or elsewhere while working part-time.
“I told her if she gets a job, get one with benefits,” Robinson said with a laugh. “The biggest thing with those kids is not that they play sports, but that they do a good job in school and treat people like they’d like to be treated.”
Robinson said his family members all were enthused about returning to Lawrence.
“When they knew we’d be leaving Tallahassee,” said Robinson, who was fired after compiling a 64-86 record at FSU following a 46-18 stint at Tulsa, “all of them independently, without knowing what was going on, told me, ‘I hope we move back to Kansas.'”
Robinson, who helped KU to Final Four berths in 1991 and ’93, says he’s thoroughly happy to have returned to KU in an assistant’s role.
“Life is too short to be bitter,” Robinson said. “I always go forward. I don’t look behind. I love being here. Every day I walk down that hallway leading to my office I do cartwheels in my mind. You’ve got to understand I do them in my mind because I physically can’t do ’em anymore,” he said.
“I love it here. Lisa enjoys being here and the kids will see the quality of life here is outstanding.”
Robinson is well aware the quality of college basketball is outstanding at KU.
“I remember when we first got here (in summer of ’88), I was just unsure,” said Robinson, who grew up in Roanoke, Va., and played college ball at Radford. “I didn’t know coach Williams that well when he offered me the job. We had just spent two years at Cornell (where Robinson was assistant) and now were moving to a university out in the Midwest foreign country to us.
“As a staff, we were all so new to everything compared to now. Some fans had to be saying (of Williams), ‘Can he coach? Can he run a program? Can he graduate players?’ All those questions people may have had about coach early in his career when we started he answered those in a hurry, didn’t he?
“Look at what he’s accomplished in 14 years. I see the growth. You never think Kansas basketball can get bigger. It has gotten bigger under coach Williams and better.”
To help ensure KU’s success, Robinson knows he must coach and hit the recruiting trail hard.
Recruiting is an aspect of basketball that has changed vastly throughout the years, including this past year when high school juniors were allowed to make recruiting trips during April and May. In the past, prep players waited until fall of their senior years to make campus visits.
KU welcomed several athletes to campus last spring and even received a pair of commitments from prep juniors J.R. Giddens and Jeremy Case. Those players can’t sign until November.
“It made for a tough spring,” Robinson said. “You get off a Final Four season and you have not had a chance to catch your breath, then, boom, you are right into it; here come a couple of kids to campus.”
If KU continues its recruiting ways and on-court success, Robinson just might find himself again in line for head coaching jobs, perhaps as soon as next offseason.
He insists he’s not thinking about that.
Now Robinson is thinking about recruiting, next week’s KU basketball camp and perhaps refinishing the bookcase in his office that he used at KU seven seasons ago.
Nothing else.
“I didn’t come into this job with the intention of looking for another job, but to help make the team the best it can possibly be,” Robinson said.
“(But) I’ve learned you should never say never. I remember in 1988 I was at the Final Four in Kansas City. It was cold miserable and rainy. The year before I was in New Orleans at the Final Four good weather, Bourbon Street. I’m in Kansas City and I said, ‘I’ll sure never live in Kansas.’
“That summer Roy calls and offers me the KU job. It’s like, ‘Hello!’ So I never say never, but right now I am so appreciative of coach bringing me back I will do everything I can to repay him by working hard.”
Just being here is payment enough for Williams, who calls Robinson as close “as a brother.”
“I’m ecstatic to have Steve and his family back in Lawrence,” Williams said. “He’s been extremely important to me the past 14 years.”
