By Preston Williams
For the 2008 presidential hopefuls, the road to the White House included an extended stay in the field house. No matter which ticket prevails Tuesday, a pair of former high school athletes will run the country come January.
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) was a reserve on the Punahou Academy basketball team that won the 1979 state title in Hawaii. He would be the first serious basketball player to occupy the Oval Office.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) competed in several sports at Episcopal High School in Alexandria, most notably wrestling.
Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), was the leading scorer on an undefeated football team his senior year at Archmere Academy in Claymont, Del.
McCain’s vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was the starting point guard on the Wasilla High basketball team that won the 1982 state title in Alaska.
All right, so it’s not as if Obama or McCain would install goalposts on the South Lawn or make tardy Cabinet members run suicide drills.
But the candidates’ athletic backgrounds underscore the value of high school sports. Their prep sports careers were far removed from contemporary cases of high-profile transfers, headline-grabbing recruiting wars or ballyhooed ESPN prime-time appearances. Their involvement was like that of most kids then and now, the kind that taps potential, teaches lessons and helps mold future leaders.
Obama (Class of ’79) and McCain (Class of ’54), underdogs during the early stages of the presidential campaign, were outsiders at their high schools. Sports provided an “armor against uncertainty, “as Obama put it in his memoir “Dreams From My Father.”
Obama came from modest means but got a scholarship to exclusive, and decidedly non-black, Punahou. Known then as “Barry, “he lived with his white grandparents and mother. On the one visit his dad made to see Obama in Hawaii, he brought his 10-year-old son a basketball. Photos from that Christmas are the only pictures Obama has of them together.
“I think it’s absolutely true, “Obama told Sports Illustrated, “that for somebody who grew up without a father in the house, an African-American of mixed race who was living in a community where there weren’t a lot of African-Americans, basketball was a refuge, a place where I made a lot of my closest friends, and picked up a lot of my sense of competition and fair play. It was very important to me all the way through my teenage years.”
Obama was sometimes called “Barry Obomber, “even though the left-handed small forward was known more for his long arms and quick first step on slashes to the basket than for his shooting touch. He favored a street-ball style; Coach Chris McLachlin preached fundamentals.
McCain, a self-described rabble-rouser at Episcopal, at the time an all-male boarding school, was one of the smaller boys on campus — he wrestled in the 127-pound class as a senior. But he was also one of the feistiest, earning such nicknames as “McNasty “and “The Punk.”
For two years, he held the school record for the fastest pin of an opponent.
McCain, too, was an outcast. He came from a military background and was bound for the Naval Academy, a pedigree and career path far different from those of the many future doctors and lawyers and businessmen at Episcopal.
“I was good at sports, and athletics were my passage through my difficult first weeks at the school, “McCain wrote in “Faith of My Fathers.” “I wasn’t an exceptional athlete, but I was good enough to earn the respect of my teammates and coaches. . . . The academics were superb and serious. But athletics were accorded equal importance in our education.”
Nobody was throwing around the term “maverick “back then, but McCain’s tendency as a senator to sometimes stiff-arm his party was evident on at least one occasion when he stood up to his teammates, according to his book.
During the fall of McCain’s senior year, a junior varsity football player confessed to having broken a team rule. Most of the players wanted to kick him off the squad. McCain argued that the boy, unlike most, had not signed a pledge promising to follow the team rules. And the boy was not caught breaking the rule; he had owned up to the transgression without prompting. McCain persuaded his teammates to drop the matter.
Biden (Class of ’61), a halfback-receiver, was known to some as “Dash “in high school, not because of his speed but for his stutter. Dash as in “B-b-b-b-b-iden.”
Sports helped him gain acceptance until he overcame his speech impediment by reciting Yeats and Emerson into his bedroom mirror, pausing when his jaw would start to clench.
“As much as I lacked confidence in my ability to communicate verbally, I always had confidence in my athletic ability, “Biden wrote in his book “Promises to Keep.” “Sports was as natural to me as speaking was unnatural. And sports turned out to be my ticket to acceptance — and more. I wasn’t easily intimidated in a game, so even when I stuttered, I was always the kid who said, ‘Give me the ball.’ ”
ad_icon
Palin, then Sarah Heath (Class of ’82), had modest basketball skills but a scrappy on-court demeanor that earned the team co-captain the nickname “Sarah Barracuda. “There is high school basketball footage of her and Obama on YouTube.
“Everything I ever needed to know I learned on the basketball team, “Palin was recently quoted as saying in an Associated Press article. “All about setting goals and working hard and having self-discipline and knowing what strengths were in the team members and then assembling those team members and tasking the team to fulfill missions. That’s what you learn in sports. “
Wrestling Gear
