Last night, President Barack H. Obama, America’s most famous basketball fan ,was re-elected to a second term in office. We send our condolences to Spencer Hawes.
In recognition of this historic event (and to make up for the fact that we didn’t get anything else done while we breathlessly followed election coverage), here is a special version of the Bathroom Reader, focused soley on the president and his involvement in the game that he (and we) love. Unsurprisingly, many of the analyses are critiques of Vanity Fair’s Michael Lewis’ famous profile of the president, which is primarily set at a pickup basketball game.
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Revealed: Obama’s Pickup Basketball Buddies
Chris Chase
USA Today
USA Today compiled a list of Obama’s lesser-known pickup basketball buddies (that is, the ones who don’t earn millions of dollars) back in September, and frankly, there are a few surprises. Like who, you ask? How about Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner, who reportedly played ball with high schoolers on a department trip to China? Or Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education who played professionally in Australia? I bet Geithner sets a nasty screen.
- JG
Obama’s Basketball Coolness
Robert Liss
Broad Street Review
In this piece from October 2009, during the height of the health care debate, Robert Liss analyzed Obama’s famed speech to the House and Senate through the lens of Obama the basketball player. Liss hypothesized that Obama’s “coolness” when it comes to oratory was learned through his experience on the court as a player who Riss called “Racky B”. Liss described Obama’s oratory style as “seductive”, much like one’s game, and on-court demeanor. This is a great piece, especially after Obama’s strong throwback victory speech last night.
- JG
Obama, Basketball, Authenticity.
Anne Helen Petersen
Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style
In this September 2012 piece, Anne Helen Petersen analyzes recent work from Michael Lewis, which chronicles his experience as a participant in a standard pickup game with Obama and his buddies. Petersen analyzes the role basketball plays in showing the authentic side of Barack Obama. Petersen takes stock in the fact that basketball, besides his family, seems to be the only thing that Obama truly loves, and that it plays a key role in the development of the “star image” that accompanies his public, political image. It’s a very smart piece of discourse analysis.
- JG
Meet the NBA Player Who Most Closely Resembles Barack Obama’s Playing Style
Tony Manfred
Business Insider
Tony Manfred of Business Insider takes Michael Lewis’ account of Obama’s game, and hypothesizes as to which NBA player the president most closely resembles. Manfred views Obama as “a floor-spacing role player who doesn’t shoot, plays solid help defense, takes charges, and passes well.” Additionally, he views Obama as a pretty poor player who gets more minutes than he probably deserves. As such, Manfred offers the following players as Obama-like: Josh Childress, Sasha Pavlovic, Royal Ivey, Lance Stephenson and Matt Carroll. Manfred should probably watch his back for guys with wires in their ears.
- JG
What It’s Like to Play Basketball with Obama
Tucker Max
Huffington Post
Editor’s Note: This annotation originally appeared in the August 23 edition of the Bathroom Reader. The big event of the Obama campaign [the week of August 23] was the “Obama Classic” which gave a lucky donor a chance to play some ball with the POTUS, as well as a few Dream Team and Cream Team members. However, before it took donated money and an extensive background check to share the court with Barack Obama, you could find him playing pickup ball with undergrads at the University of Chicago, where he was teaching. One of the guys who got to play regularly with Obama was Tucker Max, who is now a successful author. In this very entertaining piece, Max describes the nuances of Obama’s game as a man in his mid-30s. According to Max, Obama wasn’t good, but he wasn’t bad either. Max remembers Obama as a guy who “knew the basics and could execute them, but his performance wasn’t anything beyond that.” He stood out as a professor who could play a little bit, and a person who, when things got heated (as they are wont to do; everyone who plays pickup ball knows this) “was always an adult.” It’s up to you if want to project his basketball game onto his White House game, but this piece from HuffPo is definitely worth a read.
- JG