Michelle Obama’s brother selected as Baccalaureate speaker off of his own merits

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

The brother of Michelle Obama ’85, Craig Somethingorather (class year unknown), has been selected as Baccalaureate speaker thanks to his own accomplishments, such as basketball or maybe finance.

According to the minutes of an October Board of Trustees meeting, Craig narrowly beat out his former coach, the legendary Pete Carril, for the speaker bid. University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill stated that Carril, being dead, presented logistical difficulties that tipped the decision in Craig’s favor.

However, further investigation showed that being alive may not have been the only deciding factor in the trustees’ decision. A proposed post-speech Q&A, obtained by the ‘Prints,’ indicates confusion around which Craig Robinson the University invited.

“Kiss, marry, kill: Michael Scott, Ryan Howard, Dwight Schrute,” one question read. Another proposal included a live reenactment of iconic scenes from “The Office” with University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 as Michael and Dean of the College Michael Gordin as Dwight. The idea fell through after a minor brawl over which trustee would get to play Jim and kiss Pam resulted in a broken hip and three lost hearing aids. 

Craig, unaware of the circumstances of his selection, expressed a mix of excitement and nerves preceding the event. “I hope I’ll be interesting for the students who are graduating,” he told the ‘Prints.’ If not interesting, Craig will at least be relatable as an athlete who left college with big dreams, ended up in a middling finance job, and had a mid-career crisis that culminated in a podcast. 

Unsurprisingly, Craig majored in sociology at Princeton. We interviewed Greg Stevens, his former professor, mentor, and thesis advisor. 

“Craig absolutely wrote a thesis,” Stevens told the ‘Prints.’ “He had this special way of stringing words together in a way that made sentences.” As to what the thesis was about, Stevens responded confidently: “sociology.”

The content of next week’s speech, on the other hand, remains a mystery. University administration expects that Craig will stick to the usual script of teamwork and friends-made-along-the-way. They remain wary, though, having programmed a kill switch in case Craig’s podcasting instincts kick in. Trigger phrases like “hear me out…” “would you rather…” and “actually, eating bull testicles has been shown…” will automatically shut off all University microphones and detonate a short-range EMP device to disrupt audience filming. 

According to University Trustee Bradford L. Smith ’81, head of the speaker selection committee, the risk of such a slip-up is worth it in the long run.” Michelle followed Craig to Princeton, maybe this means she’ll speak in a couple of years, too.”

Nate Voss is an assistant Humor editor who rode his overachieving sister’s shirttails straight into college and intends to ride them out. He can be reached at nv5141[at]princeton.edu.