(From Chicago Sun-Times Online)
Sharp elbows are already flying in the Obama camp. With Barack Obama the first avid basketball player to be elected president, political appointees, college coaches and NBA officials are all angling to get in on the game.
Obama — whose jump shot earned him the nickname Barry O’Bomber at Hawaii’s Punahou School — has named a team of Cabinet members and aides with serious basketball backgrounds. Many of them are planning for regular court time with the president.
During the campaign, Obama said he planned to replace the White House bowling alley with an indoor basketball court. NBA officials have since reached out to Obama’s transition team to offer their services in installing a court.
If “there is an upgrading of the basketball facilities at the White House, you can be assured that the NBA and the players will be there,” said NBA Commissioner David Stern.
Not everyone is excited about basketball’s arrival as the semiofficial sport of the White House. The bowling lobby is concerned that talk of removing the White House lane will have a negative impact on their sport. To change the president’s mind, top bowling associations have offered to refurbish the lane with a state-of-the-art scoring system, high-tech bowling balls designed to grip the lane and a digital surround-sound system.
“It would be a sad, sad day” if Obama scrapped the bowling lane, says Jim Sturm, president of the Bowling Proprietors Association of America. “I think his political analysts ought to take a long look at removing [it].”
Bowling isn’t one of Obama’s strengths. On an outing before the Pennsylvania primary, he bowled a 37 with repeated gutter balls
Whether bowling stays or goes, it is clearly basketball’s moment. Basketball fans outside Obama’s inner circle are clamoring for the chance to join a White House game.
“People are already posturing as to how they’ll get in on those games. Myself included,” said Gil Jackson, head basketball coach at Howard University.
Requests for pickup games are expected to go through chief of staff Rahm Emanuel’s office. Emanuel, or someone on his staff, would screen the requests, with Obama getting the chance to assemble his own weekly games.
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