What his fellow ballers don't seem to recall, however, is whether Obama played for the Tigers in a more formal capacity, as a former coach insists and the media have reported, and no tangible proof seems to exist that he did.
No photos showing the skinny teenager in short shorts.
No roster.
No box score.
No score book.
No mention in the school paper.
Nothing has been found, school spokesman Jim Tranquada says.
Basketball Coach Brian Newhall, who enrolled at Occidental the same year as Obama, says Obama does not appear in the JV team photo from the 1979-80 season, when Newhall and the future leader of the free world were freshmen.
Newhall was the starting point guard on that team. He says he clearly remembers Obama from pickup games -- "I can say that I guarded Barry many a time in open gym," notes the coach -- but whether the left-leaning left-hander from Hawaii was part of a team that won the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championship, Newhall can't say for sure.
Nor can Galen Morton, who also played on the team. Morton can tell you that Obama eschewed the knee-length basketball socks that were popular at the time but can't tell you for certain that Obama was a teammate. But, notes Morton, "it's been a long time. If somebody says he played, OK, fine. I can't say to the opposite."
Mike Zinn says he played.
"I coached there, and he definitely played for me," says Zinn, a former Occidental athletic director and basketball coach.
Obama, he says, was his starting small forward in the 1979-80 season.
"He was really athletic, ran good, jumped good," says Zinn, who left coaching about 20 years ago and is a partner in an Orange County sales agency. "He wasn't a great outside shooter. In basketball terminology, he was kind of a slasher. He was left-handed. He went left well, didn't go right that well. |
