Oregon State Hoops Team Visits White House, Gets Advice
Posted by: Baller-in-Chief in Articles, Basketball(From Charles Pope for The Oregonian Online)
President Obama’s advice to Oregon State team visiting White House: ‘Be loose, have fun’
WASHINGTON – Washington is a town where transactions of everyday life are colored by who you know and what you want.
Which for the Oregon State basketball team is a perfect place to be when your coach happens to be the brother of the first lady and tight with a basketball-crazed president.
How else to explain senior guard Seth Tarver finding himself and his teammates at the White House this morning for a chat with President Obama and some of hoops-crazed aides? What other explanation is there for a private tour of the White House amid two wars and a wobbling economy? What other reason would there be for coach Craig Robinson’s ability to break away Thursday evening to spend part of Thanksgiving at the White House with his sister, Michelle Obama, the president and 50 highly important and close friends? And most important, how else could somebody arrange an invitation for a bunch of tall, young men from Corvallis to take a few shots at the White House basketball court?
A happy convergence indeed.
President Obama, whose love for basketball is well documented, visited with Oregon State’s team today as his brother-in-law’s players got a White House tour ahead of Saturday’s game at George Washington. In this picture, from last month, the president is seen after playing a pick-up game.“When we met the president, everybody was really excited,” Tarver said about two hours after the team emerged from a chat with Obama and a White House tour. “He was really cool.”
“They knew what they were talking about and some had watched us so that made it even better,” Tarver said.
Junior guard Calvin Haynes said meeting Obama “was probably the most memorable time of my life,” adding that the president’s words would translate into a strong performance by Oregon State (1-3) on Saturday against George Washington (4-0).
“He told us be loose, have fun and don’t worry about anything else,” Haynes said. “I think it definitely will make us more hungry because we know the president is watching us and will be clapping for us.”
The only open question is whether Obama will come to the game. George Washington’s home arena is less than two miles from the White House. Haynes expects him to be there.
“He said he’s coming. We really didn’t have to ask him.”
And compared to last year, a simple visit to a landmark near the team’s hotel neither Robinson nor the players saw the side-trip as a serious distraction.
“Last year we had a lot of distractions, especially with coach going to the inauguration. So, distractions are nothing new for us. At the same time it was really exciting,’’ Tarver said.
True enough. Last year as the team prepared to for the meat of its Pacific-10 Conference schedule, Robinson had to run off to Washington to take part in Obama’s inauguration in January. He returned to the West Coast on three hours sleep to lead the team in a game against California.
Nor was today’s chat a first for some of the players. Robinson said Obama met a couple during the campaign and was able to recall their performance when they met again.
“Not only does he know basketball but he pays attention to the teams he likes and we’re one of those,” Robinson said during a brief interview before practice today.
Robinson is hoping his players will get more than immediate boost at a time when the team is struggling to meet pre-season expectations.
“Part of the White House is like a museum and we were hearing about other presidents and the struggles of other presidents,” he said.
“The second thing is, President Obama represents hope for this country and I was hoping they would take away from a historical and sociological standpoint for themselves and stay engaged in the political process. It’s not as foreign and not as abstract for young people when you get a tour through the White House and see the White House and see the surroundings.
“If they can take that little bit away it would serve as a lesson more than any class they could take.”
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