by John McCormick
On the mid-December morning when Arne Duncan was introduced as the nominee for Secretary of Education, he was greeted by Reggie Love, a Duke University basketball and football star who served as a traveling aide to Barack Obama during the campaign and now works for him at the White House.
As the two extra-sized men exchanged a hug, Love passed along his congratulations and a nod to Duncan's basketball prowess. "Now we know we've got some ball in D.C.," Love said in a hallway at a West Side school.
But during the busy first three months of the new administration, there apparently hasn't been much presidential ball, at least involving Cabinet members.
"It's been very sporadic. We've played a couple times and we're not in any good rhythm yet," Duncan said during a visit to the Tribune earlier this week. "We keep saying we want to do more, but we are struggling to sort of figure it out."
Duncan, a co-captain at Harvard who played four years of pro basketball in Australia, said he did manage to take a few shots Monday during a basketball clinic he helped with on the White House grounds that was part of a massive Easter egg party there.
(Secretary of Education Arne Duncan met with the U.S. Conference of Mayors' on March. 31. Photo by Win McNamee / Getty Images)
Comments
To deny those poor kids in DC a chance to go to a better school and improve themselves via a few measly dollars for scholarships tells me all I need to know about this sad example of our educational leadership. Sure, the Dems cut the funds but this political appointment was missing in action for them. Yep, he got game! Air-ball...Air-ball!
Posted by: bubba Porter | April 16, 2009 1:01 PM
Of all the cabinet,I'd say Arne Duncan is closest to the President in his social views and politics.
But he is a better BB player. There might be some disagreement in that area.
Posted by: ornery | April 16, 2009 1:54 PM