Barack Obama’s Basketball Trail
On the eve of what is perhaps the most important election in decades, most of us are probably thinking in terms of HMOs, taxes, gas prices and college tuition. Me? I’m thinkin’ pick-up basketball. I’m not trivial. I just happen to know how important hoops is in the life of the front-runner, Barack Obama. He grew up playing on cracked up asphalt courts in Hawaii’s less scenic environs. It was there, he indicated in his autobiographical Dreams From My Father, that he formed his sense of belonging. Indeed, this was the only place at that time he could meet other black people. Not much later, he was a member of the high school team (although not a starter) that won a Hawaii State Championship. At Harvard Law he and a few classmates played games against Massachusetts state prison inmates. And to this day Obama is an active hooper.
Pick-up basketball is how I came to know Barack Obama in the mid-1990s. I played a few games with him at the University of Chicago’s Henry Crown Field House. He was then a young law professor. Since then he’s moved on to more exclusive gyms, like downtown’s East Bank Club. And here is where we diverge sharply. It appears that through the years Obama’s early posse of young professionals has in recent years morphed into a clique of movers and shakers who gallavant around the nation playing what the L.A. Times calls “movable basketball games.” Some of the members of this sporting cabal are not well known nationally. Yet, if I were a betting man, I’d wager they’ll all get plum jobs in an Obama administration. They include Arnie Duncan, Chief Executive of the Chicago Public Schools, and a former pro basketball player in Australia. And there’s Alexi Giannoulias, Illinois State Treasurer, who owes his current position partly to Obama. Of course there are friends from law school like Eric Whitaker and Steven Donziger. Whitaker is now Executive VP of University of Chicago Medical Center and Donziger is a New York lawyer. There’s also money men like Marty Nesbitt and John Rogers. Nesbitt is currently treasurer of Obama’s campaign and Rogers is founder of the investment firm Ariel Capital. And of course there’s the basketball experts that impart on the Obama clique an air of sporting legitimacy: Craig Robinson, Obama’s brother in law and coach Brown University’s men’s team; Rickey Green, a former NBA All-Star, who played with Obama in a 2004 Senate campaign fundraiser; Reggie Love, Obama’s personal aide, who played basketball at Duke.
"Not nice to box out Mr. President"
When the New York Times uttered, in June 2007, that “Basketball has little to do with Mr. Obama’s Presidential campaign” I suspect they were just fortifying themselves against charges of racism. After all, the disclaimer was written into a story about his basketball exploits (see “One Place Where Obama Goes Elbow to Elbow” by Jodi Kantor, The New York Times, June 1, 2007). In an election year where lipstick on pigs, bridges to nowhere, pregnant daughters, eight houses and patriotic pins have become political fodder It’s safe to say that Obama’s basketball playing can also be seen through a political frame; in fact, it already has: McCain was quick to release a video of Obama as a “celebrity” playing basketball during his trip abroad last July; and Obama is equally buffeted no doubt by youtube videos showing him draining a 3-pointer on the first try in front of applauding servicemen in Kuwait.
During this campaign Obama has made a ritual of playing pick-up basketball on momentous days. It started the day of the Iowa Caucuses and has continued with few exceptions throughout all the primaries. He even played the night before he was to be nominated at the Democratic convention. On the eve of this election–even though his Grandmother passed away just hours ago–It’s highly likely that the nation’s first Black President is moving off a pick somewhere in downtown Chicago.
In sum, if you want to know what Barack Obama will do next–who he’ll hire, how he’ll connect with people, what friends he’ll make–I don’t suggest you look at his ties to firebrand preachers or radical 60s leftists. Instead, I suggest you follow his basketball trail.
