There’s probably no one at Kentucky now that knows head coach John Calipari better outside his immediate family than his long-time assistant coach.
Robic has a varied basketball background from his days as a Division III non-scholarship player at Walsh College and Denison University, both in Ohio, to jobs as assistant coach at Kansas, Massachusetts and Memphis. He was also head coach at Youngstown State from 1999-2005 between his stops at UMass and Memphis, which were both under Calipari.
Even though he was eventually fired at Youngstown State, he moved the Penguins from the Mid-Continent Conference to the Horizon League, one of the nation’s better unknown basketball conferences that includes Butler and Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2005 NCAA Sweet 16).
While he was at UMass under Bruiser Flint and Calipari, the Minutemen went 247-111 in 11 years, including 54-41 in three years after Calipari left to go to the NBA.
His college coaching experience started at Kansas as a graduate assistant on Larry Brown’s staff. The Jayhawks were 52-22 in his two years and won the 1988 national championship.
He was a Division III All-American as a senior at Denison and has been inducted into both the Denison Hall of Fame and his high school hall of fame.
Robic and his wife, Heidi, have three daughters — Hayley, Alli and Sophie.
Join us over the next few days for the rest of this Q&A of coach John Robic by Larry Vaught.
Now is a great time to try our 7-day free trial of Kentucky Sports Report’s premium subscription. For one low cost of $99.95, you can enjoy: Unlimited access to the entire Scout.com Network; Exclusive access to KentuckySportsReport.com Premium Forums; An annual subscription to Kentucky Sports Report Magazine; The biggest, most in-depth player database anywhere; Complete coverage of Recruiting, Team and Player News; Total Access to Recruiting Videos; Recruiting rankings of all players and all teams.