The Ballplayer

Barack Obama has been linked numerous times to basketball. Earlier in the Primary contests he claimed he played pick-up the morning before the Iowa caucuses that he won and he did not play the morning of the New Hampshire primary which he lost. He joked later that he knew why he lost in New Hampshire and would definitely be playing every morning of a contest.

I remember reading a number of different articles earlier about his connection and love for the game. Having never actually seen him play, I was imagining today what sort of player the man is. Is he a real player or does he just have some lame, old-man politician game? When I think of a politician playing basketball, I immediately assume that they don't really know how to play the game but pretend they do. They probably hack the shit out of you and then call any bump on the other end. They would be super competitive, call for the ball to be checked every time down the court, and would try to lie about the score.

I want to give Barack the benefit of the doubt though. I I wondered what his jump shot looked like. Is it smooth to the point that you can immediately tell that even if he's a little rusty that its still legit? At 46, most athleticism usually has abandoned you so I'm not going to fault him if he does not impress in the respect. I guess what I really wanted to know was whether this Obama-Basketball story line is some sort of feel-good, connect-to-athletic-community-type or if he really is a basketball player in truth and form.

I found two videos of the big guy playing some ball.
The first is footage of him playing in high school. Supposedly he was on the state championship winning team in high school. Takes an outlet and goes the length of the floor for an uncontested lefty lay-up and then tries to poke away a steal, leading to one by a teammate. Misses a free throw with his team up 34 points but continues to play solid pressure defense on his man at the other end. Overall, he looks like a good player but you can't really make much out of this video. He did rock the #23 before Jordan made it happen, word.
The second is a stupid news clip of him shooting, and nailing, a single jumper in front of the cameras and on lookers. Not much to say about this one, kind of impressive that he made it with no warm up with all kinds of clowns watching him and wanting to talk about him playing basketball.

After some quick analysis and conferring with myself, I have decided that he is not some sap politician who suddenly decides he wants to likes basketball when he runs for office. He obviously has a lot of history with the game and is genuinely passionate about it. He obviously has some other commitments that he has to take care of before he can go look for a quick game, so he might not have as much time to play as he would like, which is understandable. You've got to do what you've got to do. I really believe that if you are a basketball player, the type of player you are conveys a lot about who you are in life. That being said, I would love to lace 'em up against Barack and see what he's like on the court.

While doing a quick search for some articles to reference here, I came across this one that has some fairly strong racial overtones in regards to white vs black players. It is interesting particularly because it comes from Obama's brother-in-law and current Head Men's Basketball Coach at Oregon State, Craig Robinson. Such binding archetypes serve to retard social understanding of the game of basketball as well as race relations more broadly. According to Obama himself, in order to move past the barriers of race we have to address them outright and without closed mindedness. The white slow shooter and the athletic black guy dunking can be just as damning as other overt generalizations on the basis of race, sex or otherwise.