He Got Game

Hillary may have Bill. But Barack's got game. For most of this campaign season Senator Barack Obama has kept his love of the game under wraps, but suddenly basketball became center court as a political strategy. “I do think you can tell something about people by the way they play basketball," he told HBO's "Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel" this month. Hours before losing Pennsylvania's primary to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Senator Obama played a pickup game at a YMCA in Pittsburgh with several aides, friends and two reporters. No cameras were allowed in that game — part of a private voting day ritual — but he wasn’t so shy when the campaign moved to Indiana and North Carolina, both basketball-crazed states.

He played pickup games in Kokomo, Indiana with the game tied to his voter registration drive. With cameras trained on his every 46-year-old move, Senator Obama scrimmaged with the North Carolina Tar Heels.

Very smart politics. We're a very sports-loving country and it would be unusual if our president was not sports connected in one way or another. President Dwight D. Eisenhower played golf. President John F. Kennedy played touch football with the youthful vigor that defined his 1960 campaign. President Richard Nixon bowled, badly, as he brought blue-collar voters into the GOP fold. The sports strategy has its limits. If not, former Senator Bill Bradley would have been elected president in 2000. The Hall of Fame basketball player shot hoops on the campaign trail also.

Growing up in Hawaii, Senator Obama considered basketball as a way to find his racial identity in a diverse community. "Here is a place," Obama told HBO, "where Black was not a disadvantage." Now, it's a place for a break from the campaign. Dribbling a ball during warm-ups on the court in Pittsburgh, Senator Obama said he and his pals played the day of the Iowa caucuses. "We won the caucuses then came New Hampshire and we didn't play. We were too busy," he said. "That won't happen again. I am superstitious."

He's confident and competitive, superstitious and silly, admits his mistakes, shares credit and always in control. That's Barack Obama on the basketball court, the hardwood hideaway that helped him adjust to a white world as a racially mixed teenager — and now stands as a sweaty platform for his Democratic presidential campaign.

Obama picked the teams in Pittsburgh, giving himself five of the best players and two of the worst and immediately took charge of the play, bringing the ball up court and dishing soft bounce passes. He kept score and called fouls, including one on himself. Senator Obama is extremely confident with his game, for good reason. He glides more than runs, with graceful strides that put enough space between himself and his opponents to launch a solid left-handed jump shot. The Illinois senator usually plays with younger men because he says he's a step too fast for most his age.