There are very few publicity stunts a presidential campaign can use to get on the front page of Hole Punch Sports. One of those would be practicing with my favorite college basketball team, the North Carolina Tar Heels, and Democratic hopeful Barack Obama did exactly that yesterday.
(The other way might be to straddle the fence and pretend to love two teams in the same sport equally, as one certain politician does so offensively in that story. It's just wrong.)
Judging by the behind-the-back dribble in Obama's YouTube mixtape, by this time next year our President might have better handles than I do. (But then that's probably true even if John McCain is elected.)
In all seriousness, I think it's awesome that Obama is so into hoops. His love of basketball was the subject of a recent story on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, which is available on YouTube and which I recommend watching if you have the time. The segment spends some time talking Obama playing the sport growing up and even shows a bit of him playing in a recent pickup game. (The biggest question from that is how he ever gets his compact jumper off in traffic.)
My favorite part comes at about the 5:41 mark, when they tell the story of when Obama's future wife had her brother (Craig Robinson, now the head coach at Oregon State) play basketball with Obama to see what kind of guy he really was.
Personally, I think this is a FANTASTIC way to evaluate someone. Dead serious. Like Robinson, I think you can tell a lot about a guy from how he plays basketball. If he's selfish, if he's cool, if he's a jerk—I've never played with someone whose personality traits weren't in some way reflected by their playing style. (Have you?) And if anything in the interview bugged me at all, it was when Obama only partially agreed with the idea.
The second-best part is near the end, when Gumbel asks Robinson to evaluate Obama's game on racial lines. The answer was pretty funny.
Basketball's important enough to me that Obama's love for it would make it the biggest thing I've ever had in common with a president (if he wins, natch). Don't know if that will make me vote for him. But if Obama wins and a puts a hoop in the White House, like he suggested, that would be pretty sweet.
3 comments:
Punchy -
Thanks for the great post. I think you're totally right that you can tell a lot about another person on the court. Their personality and characteristics come out in the way they play. I also really like that story about Michelle Obama's brother testing Barack on the court. I'd heard it before, but it's very cool. I think we need a hoopster in the WH, and getting rid of the bowling alley is a great idea. I also didn't realize Obama was a southpaw.
DG
An interesting story, and I of course agree that you can tell a lot about a person by his basketball style. For me this is especially true when you play pick-up ball, because that is when a guy's true colors shine through. One important thing that comes out is whether a guy has focus or prefers to try to tip in every rebound rather than bring it down and go back up strong.
I always thought there were hoops in the West Wing of the White House for employees . . . there is a basketball court directly above the chamber in the Supreme Court - sometimes you can hear the echo of dribbling while court is in session (the Justices are NOT amused when that happens).
I agree, Dave, a hoop is way cooler than a bowling lane. But most Presidents are not young men.
There are too many types of pick-up sins to list, but they include shooting too much, dribbling too much, cherry-picking too much, complaining about cherry-picking every time the other team gets a fast break or lay-up (kid in my ward does this), and barking at teammates when the barker himself is playing like junk. It's also annoying when you have to talk about your game or cuss after every missed shot...yeah, I know, you usually make it, don't you?
Dude, they have a basketball court in the Supreme Court building? That is so surprising. But I guess Justice Alito's gotta work on that stepback three somewhere. It's probably a leftover from the days of Stephon Marbury v. Madison, hyuk hyuk. I'll show myself out.
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