Posted on 06/11/2012 9:18:35 AM PDT by ColdOne
The Washington Post is up with another excerpt of David Maraniss’s forthcoming biography of President Obama, this one examining his love affair with basketball.
Maraniss dug deep into Obama’s time spent playing for Punahou, an elite prep school in Hawaii, and found that he loved the game but wasn’t exactly the star player that some accounts have suggested.
“If Obama was unhappy about his playing time, the truth is he had to work exceedingly hard just to make the team. He made it more because of his intense passion for the game -- his will -- than anything else. …The reality was that Barry, as skilled and intelligent a player as he was, could not stand out in this group. He had good court sense and an ability to slash to the basket, but was an unreliable outside shooter and not much of a jumper...
Decades later, a story emerged that his nickname was Barry O’Bomber, playing off his last name and a propensity to fire away from long range, but few team members recalled that nickname… and said the real gunner was Darin Maurer, who was better than Obama but barely got more playing time…
“He loved basketball so much, I think a lot of things have been blown out of proportion,”
(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...
Rudy of Punahou hardwood.
The importance of basketball is one over a very very large number.
As if anyone gives a smelly Obama about the limpd*ck in chief’s b-ball prowess.
Heck, no one gives a smelly Obama about anything that the smelly Obama can do.
Half-White Men Can't Jump.
how the heck did his grandparents afford an ‘elite prep school’
This is about the only interesting thing here to me. Barry whateverhisnameis was not some poor kid from the hood. He went to a high end school. Who paid for this schooling? According to the schools web site it has a current endowment fund of $183.3 million. Because of that I'm assuming that Barry X was adffirmative actioned in to the school like he was for the rest of his schooling. The guy has never done anything to pay his own way. His skin color has.
Another thing is how funny it is that American blacks, the "real" ones, the decendents of "slaves" voted for Obama in droves while the guy has nothing in common with them. He can't even play ball. Too much whitness and white men can't jump:)
Barry X, a person unable to excell in anything white or black but obtained the highest office in the land nonetheless. Sad .. Sad.. Sad..
There has been something going around conservative talk that this book “The Amatuer” author Klein or someone said that Obama’s ‘talks’ with imaginary persons made up by him is like Norman Bates talking to his mother.
I have been unable to find the quote or who said it?
Basketball has a lot more to it than just driving left all the time.
Basketball has a lot more to it than just driving left all the time.
I don’t think he was in there on an affirmative action grant. His grandmother was a bank vice president. They usually make plenty of money. Yes, his whole I grew up poor crap is a canard. Sure, his mother may have been getting food stamps, but he was living with his grandmother. So why is it relevant what his mother was doing? Let’s also keep in mind, ole’ Mom got a doctorate. She was probably a full time student pulling in every benefit she could while doing that.
Guess the WHITE half of him couldn’t, jump!!!
Grandparents were NOT poor, plus Bammy,s mom worked for Geithner,s dad who doled out MONEY from the TAXPAYERS, I believe.
He was there on scholarship. Typical white granny's bank boss was on the school board so saw to it her grandson was taken care of. The school's pet charity was Kenya so they jumped at the chance to brag about their little Kenyan prince to their alumni. Barry's teacher just happened to spend her summers teaching in Kenya every year. The Dunhams had to drag O Sr. back over and foot his bills for better than a month and part of that trip had to do with him kissing up to Punahou. Bottom line, the grandparents weren't out a dime except counting a part of O Sr.'s expenses to ward the little prince's tuition.
‘The earthbound Obama...’
Which corresponds, it seems, to his East African paternal lineage, where the world’s best distance runners hail (slow-twitch muscles), but exhibit a conspicuous dearth of sprinters and jumpers (fast-twitch muscles).
A sub on a small private school team. Big deal.
Granny was VP at the largest bank on the big island. I read an article about his high school team mates. They remember him as a back-up forward most noted for arguing with the coach during games. They won the state championship despite Obama, not because of him.
Below are the Kenyan National Records in the so-called ‘explosive’ Athletic events:
100m – 10.26
200m – 20.43
High Jump – 7’-4”
Long Jump – 26’-7”
Triple Jump – 56’-3”
Pole Vault – 15’-1”
Shot Put – 59’-8”
Definitely respectable, but certainly not befitting of a nation of 41 million with a long history of Athletics participation.
On the contrary, here are some of Kenyan’s middle distance and distance times, all World Records:
800m – 1:41.01
1000m – 2:11.96
10K – 26.44
15K – 41.13
30K – 1:37:37
Marathon – 2:03:38
Obama’s logic is if you take a lot of trips on AF1 your a Globe Trotter.
Barry’s only a legend in his own mind...
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