Another milestone: Obama 1st president who's got game
Steve Johnson | Tribune Internet critic
November 24, 2008
In Barack Obama, Americans have truly made history. We have elected to the White House, for the first time, a basketball player.
The nation has had its bowlers-in-chief, its baseball first-pitch throwers (and former owners), its golfers aplenty. For the most part, these are activities conducive to drinking a beer at the same time, which makes them sports in the same way microwaving a frozen dinner is cooking.
But Obama, to borrow a playground term, is a "baller"—a player, even at age 47, of a populist, sweat-inducing, real sport and the possessor, to judge from the video of him in action, of no small amount of game. (He played Sunday at the University of Chicago Lab School.)
If you think that doesn't mean something to those of us who continue to play pickup ball well past our physical primes, think again.
"It's much more inspiring than, say, Bill Clinton jogging to McDonald's or George W. Bush falling off his mountain bike," says Matt McHale of Warrenville, a 33-year-old regular player who writes the Basketbawful blog.
snip//
Obama's game does speak well of him. Despite the three-pointers, he seems to be more of a slash-to-the-basket type who likes to sneak passes through traffic.
"He's a naturally unselfish player," Lin says, "which must have some correlation to how he will govern."
And we can, perhaps, draw a bigger lesson from his game: Lin noticed, I noticed and even Obama himself has acknowledged that on the court, the president-elect, a lefty and, of course, a Democrat, really can only go to his left.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/columnists/chi-talk-hoops-johnson-monnov24,0,6089617.column
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