Obama’s breakthrough leaves impression on coach, athletes
Posted by: Baller-in-Chief in Articles(From the Birmingham Press and Sun-Telegraph)
The 2006-07 NCAA men’s basketball season was a special one for Binghamton University coach Kevin Broadus, for reasons beyond that trip to the Final Four with Georgetown.
An assistant coach with the Hoyas that season, Broadus remembers former players such as Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson stopping by more and more. There was also a visit from Boston Celtics legend Bill Russell. And early in the season, well before the madness of March, a young senator from Illinois stuck his head in on practice as well.
Guy by the name of Barack Obama.
“He just talked,” said Broadus, when asked if the President-elect, an avid player himself, had joined in on the practice. “It’s just more wisdom than anything. I just remember him coming through, and Bill Russell, and those guys coming through, giving young men a little bit of wisdom about life, and where they’ve been, and what they’re doing. And like Obama, where he’s going.”
It’s no secret where exactly Obama is going now: On Tuesday in Washington, D.C., before crowds that could push 3 million, he will be sworn in as the first black president in United States history.
In the weeks leading up to his inauguration, Broadus and other black figures on the Binghamton sports scene talked not only about the man, his achievement and the lessons in this moment, but also about his background in basketball and that ever-so-slight tweak he’d make to the college football season.
“I think it’s a wonderful thing,” said Broadus, who viewed Obama’s election as Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous dream finally being realized.
“Taking out the race, he was just the best candidate. Being black was one thing, but he was the best candidate that was vying for president. And the best candidate won. And it happened that he was African American. And I stand here as an African American coach proud, happy. And it shows the American way, it is equal now. No matter what your race, gender, whatever it is, the best person will win.”
Chaz Johnson, a tough, physical right wing with the Binghamton Senators, hails from Montreal. He’s not a U.S. citizen, and thus, he could not vote last November.
And yet: “Honestly, myself, family, we’re Canadian, but we followed (the election) a lot,” Johnson said. “Just to see, you know, having an African American run for a very high spot in office. We followed it a lot. We followed it even more than our Canadian election.”
Johnson spent election night calling his mother at their family-owned convenience store and dialing his dad at their family-owned clothing store – both in Saint John, New Brunswick – relaying the vote totals and the latest tally of blue states and red states.
When finally Obama was declared the winner, his phone rang and rang and rang.
“Right there just proves that anything is possible,” said Johnson, whose father, Brian, became the first black player to take the ice for the NHL’s Detroit Red Wings in the fall of 1983.
“You take a man like Tony Dungy, who was the first African American (head coach) to win a Super Bowl. And then you have Barack Obama, first African American to become president in the United States. That just shows, not just African Americans, but any race, that anything is possible. That if you believe, really, in what you are chasing, that anything is possible.”
Both backed Obama in this election.
Asked how much the presidential race was discussed amongst the team, Jackson said: “We talked about it during the election … but we haven’t really talked about him besides that. A lot of us are proud of him, and it’s good to see history being made and changes being made. But other than that, we usually just talk about basketball and what we can do to get better.”
As for what made him the best candidate in his eyes, Broadus said everything about Obama just “sat well” with him from the start, from his sincerity, to his integrity, to his leadership skills. Fuller liked his focus on the economy, but he smiled, too, at the thought of having a basketball player in the White House.
“I did see some footage of him playing basketball,” Fuller said. “I think he played some pick-up games. And he was just talking about how he had no right hand. He was just a left-handed bandit.”
Obama’s basketball ties were profiled over seven pages of the latest Sports Illustrated, with the article harking back to his high school days, and his old nickname, Barry O’Bomber.
Yet it is his comments about another sport that have the sporting world buzzing as well. In several pre-inauguration interviews, Obama has talked about his wish to someday see college football switch over to a playoff system.
“I’m a supporter of that,” Jackson said. “I’m a big Ohio State football fan, so we’re always getting close, but we never finish it off like we’re supposed to. So, maybe in a playoff system, we might get a good draw and be able to go on a run.”
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