[6] Robinson and former teammate John W. Rogers, Jr. were among those invited to practice with Michael Jordan as he prepared for his comeback.

He played professionally for the Manchester Giants in the British Basketball League for two seasons[4] and returned to the U.S. in 1988 to become an assistant coach at the Illinois Institute of Technology, a position he held until 1990.

[4] Later, he was a managing director and partner at Loop Capital Markets, a minority-owned boutique investment banking firm.

[9][12] As he later related, "When I played basketball with Barack, he was quietly confident, which means he had good self-esteem without being cocky.

[10] While working in the business world, Robinson kept a hand in basketball by doing area scouting for Princeton and coaching one year at University of Chicago Laboratory Schools.

[4] He earned a high six-figure income in his business career, but he eventually decided the financial world had lost its appeal and found his luxury lifestyle was not enough to save his marriage to Janis Robinson.

[13] On April 7, 2008, Robinson was hired as the Oregon State Beavers' head basketball coach[14] following the team's winless Pacific-10 Conference record and overall 6–25 mark the year before.

)[13] Oregon State got off to a fairly good start in Robinson's first year, starting with a 6–6 record; a January 2009 conference win over USC broke a nearly two-year Pac-10 losing streak and earned Robinson a congratulatory call from his brother-in-law, then-President-elect Obama.

[21] One key was that the offensive system he installed raised the team's collective field goal percentage almost 10 points.

[21] Some commentators felt he was deserving of consideration for the Pac-10 Coach of the Year award,[21] and by late February, Robinson had hopes of the team getting a bid from one of the postseason tournaments.

[22] The team was indeed accepted into the 2009 College Basketball Invitational, where it went on to post a 5–1 record and captured its first post-season tournament championship ever with a final series victory over the UTEP Miners.

[28] In April 2010, Robinson published his memoir, A Game of Character: A Family Journey from Chicago's Southside to the Ivy League and Beyond.

[29] The 2010–2011 season was one of regression for Oregon State, with the team falling to a 5–13, ninth-place finish in the conference, and a sharply losing record overall.

[30] The Obamas showed their support for Robinson by attending an Oregon State game against Towson in November 2011.

[31] The 2011–2012 season saw a Robinson-era best for overall wins, 21, including a pair in the 2012 College Basketball Invitational, but a fourth consecutive losing record within the conference.

In June 2012, construction began on a $15 million basketball practice facility that Robinson and previous coaches had long been campaigning for.

"[34] But the Beavers went in the opposite direction by suffering one of their worst seasons ever, with a penchant for second-half collapses and end-of-game failures.

"[34] Following the season, Robinson appeared on the CBS Sports Network as a studio analyst during the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship tournament.

[36][37] In March 2014, the Pac-12 announced that Robinson would coach an all-star basketball team that would tour China in August.

[37] The team had failed to make the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship or the National Invitation Tournament during Robinson's tenure.