The Shot!

This past Saturday, Barack Obama made an unscheduled stop during the day of the South Carolina Primary at the Columbia YMCA. He wasn’t there to try to pick up more votes, but rather to just play a few games of basketball.

Jonathan Yarborough, a former Bush 2000 campaign staffer who went on to work at the White House and manage Gresham Barrett’s Congressional campaign, was at the YMCA working out when he noticed Obama playing a game of three-on-three. Curious to see how well the presidential contender played ball, Yarborough went to the other end of the court to just to shoot around and watch. That’s when Barack said in his deep voice, “I want to play some five-on-five.”

Obama then pointed to Yarborough and asked “Do you want to play?”

Yarborough was shocked, but was still able to muster out an “okay.”

The players all grouped together to determine teams. Obama asked Yarborough to be on his team. While he probably didn’t know it at the time, he was about to be on the same team as a former Bush-Cheney staffer.

In addition to Obama and Yarborough, the teams consisted of mainly Secret Service agents. But former Duke University basketball player Reggie Love, who serves as Barack’s “body man”, led the team opposing Obama.

“Obama is a pretty decent ball player,” recalls Yarborough. “He was a little slow because of his age, but he certainly had some skills”.

At first Barack was a little nervous about his new teammate, but as the game progressed he gained more confidence in Yarborough and started dishing the ball out to him on a regularly basis. The crowd consisted of state troopers, other Secret Service agents, and less fit members of Obama’s staff.   
 
Yarborough claims Obama isn’t afraid to do some trash talking on the court. “He verbally engaged players on the other team several times, but didn’t say anything I would consider to be out-of-bounds,” said Yarborough. “He even criticized me for not blocking out Reggie Love, who is 6’4”, during a rebound opportunity. Still he would almost always complement me for making a shot or a good play if the game pace allowed him to do so.”

When I asked Yarborough why he thought Obama picked him to play on his team he said, “I guess he was probably worried that I would be some down-and-dirty elbow thrower who could potentially break his nose or give him a black eye before his victory speech that night.”

The camaraderie built between the two on the court isn’t going to sway Yarborough’s vote this November. “It would be awesome to say you played basketball with a U.S. President, but I hope I won’t have those bragging rights after the General Election. I’m voting Republican and hopefully for Mitt Romney this fall,” said Yarborough. “He seems like a really cool guy, but his policies are just way too liberal for my taste.” 

We live in era marked with one of the greatest partisan divides in the history of our nation. It’s somewhat reassuring to see that Republicans and Democrats can work together on something, even if it is only a game of basketball. Obama might have not known Yarborough’s identity or past political work during the game. But something tells me that even if he had he still would have asked Yarborough to play. I just think that is who Obama is. Still, just like Yarborough, I think he’s a little too liberal for my taste.  
   

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under 2008 | Democrats, Presidential, Random Fun, Sports Bar, The Chaser, The Crew, Top Shelf News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.