Policy in Practice

Obama at Punahou

He’s putting together a team of basketball lovers.

Obama himself was a high school basketball star in Hawaii.

His body man, Reggie Love–whom Policy in Practice interviewed recently–is a former Duke basketball star. He and Obama played basketball regularly while on the campaign trail.

Obama’s choice for National Security Advisor, General James Jones, played ball for Georgetown.

His selection for Attorney General, Eric Holder, also ceased his playing days in high school. But like Obama, he remains an avid player, and even went so far as to trash talk Obama a bit in an interview with the New York Times for not being tough enough to deal with Holder’s “New York-style” of play.

Similarly, Obama’s new Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner, is a passionate pick-up basketball player.

Susan Rice, Obama’s selection for U.N. ambassador, starred as a high school player in Washington D.C.

This leads to our report that Arne Duncan is set to be named Obama’s Secretary of Education. Duncan is another former basketball player and continued pick-up participant. An Academic All-American at Harvard, Duncan captained the Crimson and developed a relationship with Obama on the basketball court, where the two have been playing against one another since the mid-1990s. Obama and Duncan were introduced by Obama’s brother-in-law, who is one of the greatest players in Princeton basketball history and the current head coach at Oregon State.