WASHINGTON — Standing mere feet from where Barack Obama would soon be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, Don King took off his oversized winter coat and beanie to reveal a red, white and blue painted jean jacket covered in political pins. Not even the 20-degree temperature could temper boxing’s most infamous promoter.
“Only in America,” he proclaimed, repeating his signature phrase, which he had shouted so many times before but had new meaning on this day.
“In 1974 I had signed the two biggest athletes in the world (Muhammad Ali and George Foreman) and I couldn’t put them on in my country because of racism,” said King, who was invited to the Inauguration by Harry Reid, the senate majority leader from Nevada. “In 1975 I signed Joe Frazier and Ali, and I had to go to Manila and make it the “Thrilla in Manila” to put it on. I never thought I would see this day in my lifetime.”
Former NBA star and now Sacramento Mayor, Kevin Johnson (far right), was among the millions at the Inauguration.
King, whose jacket had pins of both George W. Bush and Obama, was reminiscent of many of his post-fight press conferences where he aligned himself with the winner no matter who he may have supported coming in.
“I am a Republicrat,” he said. “I support America and whoever is best for America. I supported and love George Walker Bush because he supported us and put blacks in a position of power, but he’s moving on and I support Barack Obama. He’s the president for all Americans.”
As King spoke, Magic Johnson walked along the platform — the one Obama would later march down — shortly before the ceremony got underway. Johnson gazed at the hundreds of thousands of people that had jammed the National Mall to witness history. “Incredible,” he said as he soaked in the scene and shook his head alongside John Kerry. “That’s unbelievable.”
Nearby Kevin Johnson, who had battled Johnson for years as a point guard with the Phoenix Suns and who was recently elected mayor of Sacramento, took his seat among Washington’s elite, smiling as he looked at the crowd around him. “Forty-five years ago, Martin Luther King gave his ‘I have a dream’ speech,” he said. “The dream is now being realized with Barack Obama.”
There were dozens of other athletes sprinkled around the Capitol as well, from Ali, who sat on stage for the ceremony along with his wife Lonnie (”He wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” she said), to San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman, who came to Washington with San Francisco 49ers tight end Vernon Davis and several other friends from Maryland. “I paid a pretty good amount [for the tickets] to witness history,” said Merriman, “but I had to be a part of it.”
While Obama may have endeared himself to sports fans with his love of basketball and his staunch support of a college football playoff, the impact he’s had on the usually apolitical athletes of today’s generation was apparent.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve ever been political about anything,” admitted Kansas City Chief tight end Tony Gonzalez, who had campaigned for Obama. “It’s the first time that I said I have a voice and that I should go out and stand up for what I believe in. Seeing someone like Barack and meeting him and reading his book, I thought he was the best person to lead our country.”
Gonzalez spoke at the Latino Inaugural Ball, where he introduced Jennifer Lopez at Union Station before leaving Washington prior to Inauguration day to be with his 8-month-old daughter Malia.
“It’s great and exciting that she’ll be a part of this new world,” Gonzaglez said. “It’s something my wife and I can point to and say ‘this is what you can do and this is what you can accomplish.’ Anything is possible now.”
Obama was even able to get Tiger Woods, who’s avoided politics like he has bogies, to speak on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the opening ceremonies Sunday. While his speech focused on the military, he had previously called Obama’s election, “incredible,” adding, “He represents America.
“He’s multiracial. I was hoping it would happen in my lifetime. My father was hoping it would happen in his lifetime, but he didn’t get to see it. I’m lucky enough to have seen a person of color in the White House.”
It was a common theme among the athletes who descended upon Washington. They had come to see history being made in person. Hall of fame running back Jim Brown, who was one of the most politically active athletes of his generation, attended — not for political reasons, but for its historical significance. Having lived through segregation and continually fighting racism his entire life, Brown was nearly speechless after watching Obama being sworn in.
“We have come a long ways,” said Brown. “America has now broken a racial barrier by having a black man in the highest office.”
After the Inauguration, as celebrities such as Sean “Diddy” Combs, Jay-Z and Beyoncé passed by, King was still smiling as he clinched an American flag in each hand and raised his arms.
“I believed but I never thought he’d get elected, not this quick,” he said of Obama. “Anybody who tells you different is telling you a lie. I was hoping and praying that this would happen. Not just for Barack, but America. Where else could a day like this happen?”
With the world still reeling from an amazing day in history, the YouTube gods have added this double delicious three minute clip of some of our favorite hoops babes talking about the impact of this election on their lives and that of their kids…Rashard Lewis, Amare Stoudemire, Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler, Phil Jackson and others….
And for those who didn’t get the memo, Lebron watched the inauguration from his hotel room yesterday…in efforts to make sure we knew he was paying attention-he had the media snapping photos of he and his family in the hotel room, predictably, his insanely inflated ego was enough to make me throw up just a little bit…and no, I will never change my opinion of ‘he-who-only-smiles-for-the-camera-when-he-can-make-a-buck-or create-good-publicity-for-himself…
Maybe one day we’ll see our Baller in Chief donning a pair of Jordan Pure Pressure Limited Edition Inaugural Shoes? The kicks were released yesterday in two color schemes- inspired by our sexy Presidents first official day in office, Atlanta Hawk teammates Mike Bibby and Joe Johnson each wore a pair during their game against the Bulls…Made of a white leather upper, the key feature on each shoe is the graphic treatment along the midsole that is loosely based on stars and stripes. Along the tongue of each shoe, you’ll find the date of 1.20.09 stitched in, and below the eye stay sits each player’s personal logo. As usual, we see the ‘Team Dime’ icon on Mike Bibby’s pair, but here we have the debut of Joe Johnson’s personal ‘JJ2? logo, designed by Justin Taylor. (Sole Collector)
Judging by what we’ve been reading about the guy for the past two years, we were under the impression that when Barack Obama is inaugurated today, we’d have not just the most perfect president ever, but the most awesome basketball player our government’s ever seen. After all, the Obama profile in Sports Illustrated last week describes his game as “old-school schoolyard” and “feisty,” in addition to explaining how he basically used the sport to win everything from swing states like North Carolina to the approval of future brother-in-law Craig Robinson. The only two downsides to his game, we were led to believe, were that he can’t dunk and that his uniform of sweats “isn’t likely to set a trend.”
But is it possible Obama’s skills are — gasp! — overrated? In SI, Claude Johnson, the editor of baller-in-chief.com, talks about Obama’s cred, and how he’s played pick-up ball with the likes of the Knicks’ Chris Duhon. But in the Post today, Duhon himself crushes our hopes. His analysis of Obama’s best move? “I don’t think he has a best move.” To make things worse, the Sporting Blog today points out that he’ll be far from the best president, athletically speaking. (That’s a toss-up between Teddy Roosevelt and Gerald Ford.) And now that we think about it, there was that David Axelrod anecdote in SI about Obama blowing a layup last year when he saw North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough coming at him. With regard to his balling skills, at least, consider our expectations adjusted.
We’re not sure when a sporting background became so important to presidential aspirations. Maybe it really isn’t. The Kennedys projected relaxed American athleticism in their famous touch football games. Such visual appeal tied in nicely with the burgeoning number of television sets in homes across the nation. It might just be raw visual appeal.
Getty Images
Not officially licensed by Nike, from the looks of it.
After that, however, the necessity of a sports affiliation still didn’t take hold. Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter were elected with little or no sports love required, or exploited. Gerald Ford had his history as a Michigan Wolverines football star and his frequent golf outings to fall back on.
When it came to Ronald Reagan, voters did seem to like that Ronnie had played Notre Dame’s George “Gipper” Gipp in the film Knute Rockne: All American, and his turn as a football and baseball announcer in Iowa was mentioned from time to time.
For the Bush family, it was baseball. Bush Sr. captained the Yale baseball team to berths in the first two College World Series and his son owned the Texas Rangers. In between those bookends was Bill Clinton, who seemed to be a reluctant runner, but a genuine fan of Nolan Richardson’s Arkansas Razorbacks.
For Barack Obama, who will be inaugurated in our nation’s capitol today, the love of hoops is deeply ingrained in his image. During his quest to become the nation’s 44th President, Obama’s basketball bona fides have accumulated rapidly.
•He scrimmaged with the North Carolina Tar Heels
•His brother-in-law, Craig Robinson, is head coach at Oregon State
•Photos of him in a basketball uni with his team from Hawaii are seen frequently
•Obama suggested that he would prefer an indoor court to the White House bowling alley
•Played one-on-one ball with a reporter
•Named former Hoya forward James L. Jones as his National Security Advisor (and still keeps former Dukie Reggie Love as his body man)
In addition, Obama has thrown out a first pitch in White Sox gear, and opined that the BCS system stinks. He has Tiger Woods giving speeches on his behalf. That might seem like overplaying one’s hand a tad, but it seems to have worked out.
So far, it’s been the major American sports that have lent machismo to our presidential candidates. Will we some day elect the first president who claims ties to the under-appreciated sport of free diving?
Don’t hold your breath.
Some sports-themed, Obama-related merch for you on this historic day:
2008 Topps Obama Basketball Card: There’s no doubt that the Punaho jersey would be a boffo seller if some enterprising Hawaiian wanted to start selling them. For now, we’ll settle for the card.
Barack is a Steelers Fan Button: This seems like wishful thinking on the part of the Super Bowl XLII-bound Pittsburgh fan base.
Obama Personalized Bears Jersey: This seems a little closer to a believeable sports affiliation for Obama. The ability to claim teams from Hawaii, Chicago, New York and now D.C. seems handy for memorabilia fabricators. We’re still looking for the first Indonesia soccer strip, though.
Dunking on McCain T-shirt: Does this shirt lower the level of political discourse? Absolutely. Is it also kind of funny? Absolutely.
Joe Biden Phillies button: We don’t recall Philly residents throwing an all-night bonfire and booze party for the Biden Veep nomination, but we suppose there’s some connection there.
Obama Rookie Card: Shouldn’t an Obama rookie card show him knocking on doors as a young political organizer? We checked all of the basketball websites we could think of and never found any pro stats for the 44th prez.
Craig Robinson signed business card: The disarray inherited by Robinson at Oregon State is a drop in the bucket compared to what is brother-in-law will face starting today. Good news: The Beavers have already won more Pac-10 games than they did last year. Bad news: That means they’re 1-5 in the league.
Topps first pitch card: Man. The Sox will try anything to load up on left-handed pitching.
“1963″ Topps Washington Senators card: We always like to end with something bizarre if we can. We think photoshopping Obama (badly) into a scene from 1963 counts. The president would have been two years old at the time, and probably would have objected to the “W” on the cap.
In the Spring of 2002, the Denver Nuggets missed the NBA Playoffs for the seventh consecutive season, and for the 10th time in 12 seasons. Going back to 1990, the franchise had been run by a slew of incompetent, greedy, self-serving and lazy individuals who never took the time to understand the salary cap, scout international and high school players, or formulate worthwhile deals that paid off in the long run. On the floor and in the locker room, the coaches during this period were equally incompetent and/or lazy. They didn’t demand nightly excellence and effort from the players, often didn’t show up on time (or at all in some cases) to practices and even enabled a player mutiny at one point.
From 1990 through 2002, the Denver Nuggets franchise was in total disarray: they never won more than 42 games, won only one playoff series, and had four seasons in which they couldn’t do better than 21 wins (including one in which they won just 11 games, tying the NBA’s second worst all-time record). For a franchise that had only missed the postseason twice in 23 previous seasons, professional basketball in Denver had become a running joke.
And then change we could believe in came along in the summer of 2002 when a man with little experience and a funny name took over the coaching ranks for the team.
His name was Jeff Bzdelik.
Entering the 2002-03 season, Bzdelik inherited the worst roster in modern NBA history. In order to move “toxic assets” off the books, then-Nuggets GM KikiVandeweghe had pillaged the roster of what little talent it had remaining, and left Bzdelik with a roster of no-names such as Chris Andersen (who made the team after an open tryout…unheard of in the modern NBA), Mark Blount, Rodney White, Donnell Harvey, Junior Harrington, Vincent Yarbrough, Chris Whitney, Shammond Williams, Ryan Bowen, Kenny Satterfield and PredragSavovic (who? He played 27 games that season!) and two teenage rookies with even funnier sounding names than Bzdelik: NikolozTskitishvili and Maybyner “Nene” Hilario.
Under Bzdelik’s tutelage, 2002-03 was a dreadful season record-wise. The Nuggets won just 17 games, the third worst outing in franchise history, and were routinely clobbered by their opposition. They averaged 84.2 points per game (29th out of 29 NBA teams) and their attendance ranked 25th. In one game they put up just 53 points. A mere 58 in another. They scored in the mid-to-low 60s on three other occasions and managed less than 80 points a total of 30 times, more than a third of their games.
And yet if you watched this team play each game as I did, you’d never have guessed they were a 17-win team. In fact, you could argue (as I have on numerous occasions), that they won 17 more games than they ever should have.
Jeff Bzdelik changed the culture of professional basketball in Denver. The Nuggets may have suffered from years of ineptitude beforehand, had no money to work with, and an all-time worst roster to boot - i.e. the perfect storm for what should have turned into the fewest wins in NBA history - but Bzdelik never used any of this as an excuse. Under Bzdelik, the Nuggets players were going to out-hustle and outwork their opponents virtually every night. They would play unselfishly and commit to defense, or they wouldn’t get back on the floor.
After one season with Bzdelik at the helm, playing in Denver no longer seemed like a death sentence to NBA players. Thanks to good fortune with the draft, a few of Vandeweghe’s trades panning out and - most importantly - the atmosphere of effort, selflessness and confidence built from the ground up by Bzdelik - the Nuggets were able to build off of Bzdelik’s energy and return to the playoffs the following season. Six seasons later, the Nuggets are one of just three teams in the Western Conference to have appeared in the postseason for five consecutive seasons.
Watching Barack Obama sworn in as our 44th President today, I couldn’t help but think back to 2002 (yes, I’m that pathetic of a Nuggets fan that I’m actually drawing a connection between the two, but please bear with me). Like the Nuggets that year, our country has also succumbed to a slew of incompetent, greedy, self-serving and lazy individuals - both Republican and Democrat - who failed to understand our financial system, deal appropriately with the world around them and the problems at home, or formulate worthwhile plans and programs that could pay off in the long run.
Like the Denver Nuggets of 2002, the United States of America is badly in need of a culture change and I believe Barack Obama could be our country’s Jeff Bzdelik.
In fact, I see Obama’s first year in office being similar to that 2002-03 Denver Nuggets season. We may not see a lot of immediate progress and a lot of mistakes will be made, but if President Obama can - at a minimum - establish an atmosphere of effort, selflessness and confidence (mentioned in today’s inaugural address, by the way) and catch a few lucky breaks along the way, I believe we can get through the various monstrous problems before us and come out much better on the other side.
So here’s wishing President Obama the best of luck (I know my stock portfolio needs it…yeeesh). May he do for our nation what Jeff Bzdelik did for Nuggets Nation.
Brick!
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