Basketball, Tar Heels entice Obama

Don’t give the minister credit for unduly influencing the presidential candidate. Rather, it was the high school basketball coach who molded the thinking of his former player.

That became evident in Chapel Hill last week, when Democrat Barack Obama played pickup basketball against players from the University of North Carolina.

Basketball has been Obama’s game since primary school. The scholarship student dribbled a ball daily to and from the 3,700-student Punahou School, among the largest private schools in the U.S., and kept dribbling as he moved around the Honolulu campus.

Basketball remained Obama’s game in high school, where he was a lanky reserve on a 1979 Punahou squad that won the state championship. Because great height is not a common attribute on the islands, Obama wound up at forward despite standing just 6-2.

“We were going through a period of like four years of really, really good basketball players,” said Chris McLachlin, then the coach at Punahou. “Had he gone to any other school in Hawaii, he probably would have been a starter and a star.”

Obama has campaigned across the nation for more than a year, giving him ample opportunity to display athletic skills a bit more impressive than his bowling. Yet he didn’t make a basketball splash until presented with a chance to play some hoops with the Heels, whom he had picked to win the 2008 NCAA tournament.

Back in Hawaii, McLachlin was not surprised when he saw video on CNN of Obama participating in pickup action at Carolina. If anything, it seemed perfectly logical.

McLachlin, an unabashed Dean Smith admirer, had readily shared that enthusiasm with his players. “He either knowingly, consciously remembered, or subconsciously remembered,” the recently retired coach said of Obama’s early basketball indoctrination. “Either way, it was a good thing. I wasn’t shy about spouting Dean Smith platitudes all the time.”

When the Tar Heels came to Honolulu to play in the Rainbow Classic, McMachlin lent his gym as a practice facility. He sometimes took Punahou squads to the Rainbow as a special treat when UNC was involved. McLachlin also reports with a father’s pride that his own son, Parker, now a pro on the PGA circuit, caddied for Smith once as a teenager.

“Obviously my son had heard a lot about Dean Smith. He was brainwashed too,” said the prep coach, who won three state basketball titles at Punahou. “I’m like the hugest Carolina fan in Hawaii.”

Only the debilitating effects of a stroke prevented McLachlin from traveling to North Carolina this past February to watch a UNC practice at the Smith Center. “Any basketball coach who doesn’t want to be in there before he dies is crazy,” said McLachlin. He also hoped to see a Duke practice.

The coach saw little change in Obama's game as he watched the cable TV clip of the outing with the Heels. “He’s got some moves,” McLachlin said. “He likes to go to the hoop, pretty much like he did 30 years ago.”

Obama’s fondness for the game apparently hasn’t waned, either, even if he no longer dribbles a ball wherever he goes. “I dream of playing basketball,” he said in a television interview last year.

McLachlin, a commentator on telecasts of local men’s and women’s college volleyball, a major ratings draw in Hawaii, struggled to recall any parallels between the way Obama plays basketball and pursues politics.

Upon reflection, he remembered an instance in which the nature of the candidate, or at least the essence of his electoral message, was revealed.

A group of reserves led by Obama came to McLachlin to negotiate more playing time. They were “very diplomatic,” the coach said. “That’s the most significant instance I could think of, in terms of his bringing people together.”

Obama has changed in at least one significant respect since high school, however. Keen on more forthrightly embracing his African heritage, during college he began insisting others call him “Barack,” the birthname he shares with his father. The elder Obama abandoned his family and returned to Kenya when his son was young.

But in choosing Barack, Obama shed the enchanting Americanized nickname he so fortunately sported in earlier life.

Not everyone embraced the change, if only out of habit. “I will always probably know him as ‘Barry,’” McLachlin said.