On a campaign trip in April, Obama scrimmaged with the University of North Carolina men's squad, one of the best teams in the country. A skinny 6-foot-2, he looked small and out of his depth as he tried to keep up with some of the nation's top college players.
But Marcus Ginyard, a guard and forward, offered: "He wasn't scared to stick his nose in there. A couple of times we were a little nervous about a collision. It wouldn't be too good for him, considering how small he was. But he wasn't scared to shoot it."
In the Obama campaign, every conceivable asset is deployed to win votes. In a bid to register voters before the Indiana primary, the campaign dangled a chance to play a game of three-on-three with Obama as a reward for registering the most voters.
The game took place April 25 at a middle school gym in Kokomo. The players included a Marion, Ind., high school junior and an Indiana University Kokomo freshman, each of whom registered more than 150 voters. Another was Alison Bales, a 6-foot-7 women's basketball star, whose appearance didn't hurt at a time when Obama was battling for the female vote against Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama's team won 15 to 5, with the candidate scoring four baskets and pulling down as many rebounds.
The biggest date on the political calendar is Nov. 4, election day. King expects Obama will play even on that most white-knuckle of days.
And after that? Obama has joked that if he wins, he may put a basketball court in the White House, using the space now occupied by the bowling alley.
"I don't know if it'll be at the White House, or somewhere else, but I'm sure we'll figure out how to play," said Nesbitt, the campaign treasurer. Obama, he added, can always be talked into "running one more."
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peter.nicholas@latimes.com
