youth
Bradley was born on July 28, 1943 in Crystal City, Missouri, the one kidof Warren, a banker, and Susan "Susie" (ne Crowe) Bradley (d. 1995), a teacher. Politicians and politics were populardinner-tcapable ofpics in Bradley's childhood, and
design fashion design schoolhe described his father as a "forgedRepublican" who was an elector for Thomas E. Dewey within the 1948 presidential election.
He began playing basketball in fourth grade. He was a basketball star at Crystal townhighschool, where he scored 3,068 points in his scholastic career, and was twice named All-American. He received 7fiveschoolscholarship offers, alalthoughhe applied to simplyfive schools.
Bradley's basketball skillwas enhanced by his uncommonly wide peripheral vision, which he worked to decorateby that specialize in faraway objects at the same time aswalking. During his highschool years, Bradley maintained a rigorous practice schedule, a habit he carried through college. He would work at the court for "three and a parthours on a daily basis after school, nine to fiveon Saturday, one-thirty to fiveon Sunday, and, in the summertime, about three hours an afternoon. He put ten pounds of lead slivers in his sneakers, ardiversitychairs as opponents and dribbled in a slalom fashion across them, and wore eyeglass frames that had a work of vehicledboard taped to them in order that he couldn't see the ground, for an even dribbler never looks on the ball."
Basketball
College
Playing at Princeton, 1964
Considered the highest highschool player within the country, Bradley initially chose to wait Duke University within the fall of one961. However, after breaking his foot in the summertime of one961 during a 3-hitter and excited about his schooldecision outside of basketball, he decided to sign up at Princeton University instead. He were awarded a scholarship at Duke, but not at Princeton (the Ivy League doesn't permitits members to award athletic scholarships). In his freshman year at Princeton, Bradley averaged greater than 30 points per game for the freshman team, and at one point during his freshman season, he made 57 consecutive free throws. the next year, as a sophomore, he was a varsity starter, in Butch van Breda Kolff's first year because the Princeton coach.
Bradley was named to the gameing News All-American first team in early 1963, in his sophomore year, and the coach of the St. Louis Hawks believed he was in a positionto play probasketball at that time. The AP and United Press International polls both put Bradley at the second one team, establishing him because the highest sophomore player within the country. the next year, as a junior, the gameing News again named him to its All-American team (the one junior) and extraly named him player of the year.
Olympic medal record
Men's Basketball
Gold
1964 Tokyo
usa
on the Olympic basketball trials in April 1964, Bradley played guard as opposed to his common forward position, and was still a top performer on the rigors. He was chosen unanimously for the Olympic team and was also elected captain of the Princeton basketball team for the next season. The Olympic team went directly to win its sixth consecutive gold medal.
In total, Bradley scored 2,503 points at Princeton, averaging 30.2 points per game. He was awarded the nineteen6fiveJames E. Sullivan Award, presented annually to the U.S.' top amateur athlete, the basicbasketball player to wwithin the honor, and the second one Princeton student to wwithin the award, after runner Bill Bonthron in 1934.
Bradley holds numerous Ivy League career records, including total and average points (1,253/29.83, respectively), and free throws made and attempted (409/468, 87.4%). Ivy League season records he holds similarly include total and average points (464/33.14, 1964) and maximumfree throws made (153 in 170 attempts, 90.0%, 1962-1963). He also holds the automobileeer point record at Princeton and plenty of alterlocalschool records, including the highest ten smasseswithin the category of total points scored in a game.
Bradley wrote his senior thesis at Princeton about Harry S. Truman, titled "On That Record I Stand". He graduated with honors and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship at Worcester College, University of Oxford. Bradley's tenure at Princeton wbecause the topic of Pulitzer Prize-winning author John McPhee's first book, a way of Where you're.
Professional
Bill Bradley
Position(s)
Sminterested inward/Shooting guard
Jersey #(s)
24
Born
July 28, 1943 (1943-07-28) (age??66)
Crystal City, Missouri
Career information
Year(s)
19671977
NBA Draft
196five/ Round: n/a / Pick: territorial
choseby ny Knicks
College
Princeton
proteam(s)
Olimpia Milano (19651966)
ny Knicks (19671977)
Career stats (NBA)
Points????
????9,217
Assists????
????2,533
Steals????
????209
Stats @ Basketball-Reference.com
Career highlights and awards
ny Knicks #24 retired
196fiveUSBWa school Player of the Year
NBA All-Star (1973)
Basketball Hall of Fame as player
Bradley's graduation year, 1965, wbecause the los angelesst year thon the NBA's territorial rule was in effect, which gave proteams first rights to draft players who attended schoolwithin 50 miles of the team. the brand ny Knicks drafted Bradley as a territorial pick the nineteen6fivedraft, but he didn't sign a freelance with the team immediately. at the same time asattending Oxford, he played probasketball briefly in Italy's Lega Basket Serie A for Olimpia Milano (196566 season), where the team won a eu Champions Cup. He signed a freelance with the Knicks in April 1967, and was to sign up for the team mid-season, after serving six months within the U.S. Air Force Reserve. He was released from the army sooner than he had expected, and started practicing with the Knicks in December.
In Bradley's rookie season, he joined the team late, having also missed all of the preseason. He was placed within the back court, alalthoughhe had spent his highschool and school careers as a forward. Both he and the team didn't can well, and within the following season, he was returned to the forward slot. Then, in his third season, the Knicks wat their first-ever NBA championship, by the second one within the 197273 season, when he made the just all-Star Game appearance of his career. Over ten years with the Knicks, Bradley scored a complete of 9,217 points, a popularof one2.4 points per game, together with his most efficientseason average being 16.1 points per game within the 197273 season. He was also the basicplayer to win an Olympic gold medal, a eu Champions Cup, and an NBA championship, a feat that has only been matched by Manu Ginbili.
During his NBA career, Bradley used his fame at the court to explore social in addition to political issues, meeting with journalists, government officials, academics, businesspeople, and social activists. He also worked as an assistant to the director of the Office of monetaryOpportunity in Washington, D.C., and as a teacher on the street academies of Harlem. In 1976, he even became an author by publishing Life at the Run. employinga 20-day stretch of time during one season because the basicfocus of thbook, he chronicled his experiences within the NBA and the folk he met along the best way. He noted within the bokthat he had initially signed just a four-year contract, and that he was uncushtyemployinghis celebrity prestigeto earn more money endorsing products as other players did.
Retiring from basketball in 1977, he was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982, at the side of teammate Dave DeBusschere. In 1984, the Knicks retired his number 24 jersey; he wbecause the fourth player so honored by the Knicks, after Willis Reed, Walt Frazier, and DeBusschere.
Politics
Politics were a frequent subject of dialogue within the Bradley household, and a few of his relatives held local and county political offices. He majored in history at Princeton, and was present within the Senate chamber when the Civil Rights Act of one964 was passed. He spent his time at Oxford that specialize in ecupolitical and economic history. In 1978, he said that congressman Mo Udall, himself a sorter probasketball player, needed told him ten years earlier that professionalfessional sports mayassistanceprepare him for politics, dependent on what he did together with hisn't anyn-playing time.
Senate
After 4years of political campaigning for Democratic candidates around New Jersey, Bradley decided in the summertime of one977 to run for the Senate himself. He felt his time were well-spent in "paying his dues". the oceant was held by liberal Republican and 4-term incumbent Clifford P. Case. Case lost the main electidirectly to anti-tax conservative Jeffrey Bell, who, like Bradley, was 34 years old because the campaign season began. Bradley wat the oceant within the general election with about 56 %of the vote. through the campaign, Yale football player John Spagnola was Bradley's bodyguard and driver.
within the Senate, Bradley acquired a name for being somewhat aloof and was regarded as a "policy wonk", that specialize in complex reshapeinitiatives. some of these wbecause the nineteen86 overhaul of the federal tax code, co-sponsored with Dick Gephardt, which reduced the tax rate schedule to only two brackets, 1five%and a couple of8 percent, and eliminated many varieties of deductions. Domestic policy initiatives that Bradley led or was related to included: retype of kid support enforcement; legislation regardinglead-related children's illnesses; the Earned Income Tax Credit; campaign finance reform; a re-apportioning of California water rights; and federal budget reshapeto scale back the deficit, which come withd, in 1981, supporting Reagan's spending cuts but opposing his parallel tax cut package, certainly one of only three senators to take this position. He sponsored the liberty Support Act, an examendmentprogram between the republics of the shapeer Soviet Union and the U.S..
Bradley was re-elected in 1984 with 6five%of the vote against Montclair mayor Mary V. Mochary. In 1988, he was encouraged to hunt the Democratic nomination for President, but he declined to go into the race, saying that he would know when he was ready. In 1990, a problem over a state income tax increasen which he refused to speculateurned his once-obscure rival for the Senate, Christine Todd Whitman, right into a viable candidate, and Bradley won by just a narrowmargin. In 1995, he announced he would to not run for re-election, publicly putting forwardAmerican politics "broken."
at the same time ashe was a senator, Bradley walked the beaches from Cape couldto Sandy Hook, a four-day, 127-mile trip each Labor Day weekend, to evaluate beach and ocean conditions and talk with constituents.
Following the nineteen90/91 revelations of Izvestiain regards to the downing of Korean Air Lines Fgentle007, Bill Bradley, at the side of vehiclel Levin, Sam Nunn and Ted Kennedy wrote to the Soviet President, Mikhail Gorbachev requesting details concerning the flight.. Afterwards, on December 10. 1991, Senator Jesse Helms, at the moment ranking member of the minority staff of the Committee on Foreign Relations pressed the problem with Boris Yeltsin. The Russian Federation's 1992 turning in the long concealed and denied Black Box and faucetes, at the side of the Soviet military communications of the shootdown, maywell were the result of those senatorial attempts for more informationrmation, beginning with Senator Bradley and the opposites.
Presidential candidate
Bradley ran within the 2000 presidential primaries, opposing incumbent vice chairman Al Gore for his a party's nomination. Bradley campaigned because the liberal alterlocalto headre, taking positions to the left of Gore on numerous issues, including universal fitnesscare, gun control, and campaign finance reform. at the'ssue of taxes, Bradley trumpeted his sponsorship of the Tax ReshapeAct of one986, which had significantly cut tax rates at the same time asabolishing dozens of toiletpholes. He voiced his trustthon the most productive possible tax code can be one with low rates and no loopholes, but he refused to rule out the theory of raising taxes to pay for his fitnesscare program, calling the theory of this type of pledge "dishonest".
On public education, he proposed to make over $2 billion in block grants availcapable of eachstate once a year. He extrapromised to bring 60,000 new teachers into the education system in hard-to-staff spacesover ten years by offering schoolscholarships to anyperson who agreed to become a teacher after graduating; Gore offered an identical proposal.
Bradley also made kidpoverty a major problem in his campaign. He promised so as to adclothethe minimum wage, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, permitsingle parents on welfare to remaintheir kidsupport payments, make the Dependent Care Tax Credit refundable, build support housesfor pregnant teenagers, enroll 400,000 more youngstersin Head Start, and that increase the sourceof food stamps.
AlalthoughGore was considered the party favorite, Bradley received numerous high-profile endorsements, including senators Paul Wellstone, Bob Kerrey, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan; former Secretary of work Robert Reich; former ny townmayor Ed Koch; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker; and basketball stars Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson. Bradley and Jackson were close friends because they were teammates playing for the brand ny Knicks. Jackson was a vocal supporter of Bradley's run for the presidency and regularly wore his campaign button in public. He announced his acceptance of the placement of head coach of the l. a. Lakers at the same time asBradley was campaigning in California in 1999, and he was a "regular draw at the Bradley money trail" through the campaign. Bradley later known asit a "wonderfulhonor" to be the existinger when Jackson was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
In March 2000, after failing to win any of the basic20 primaries and caucuses within the election process, Bradley withdrew his campaign and endorsed Gore; he ruled out the theory of running because the vice-presidential candidate and didn't answer questions on possible future runs for the presidency. He said that he would continue to talk out concerninghis logoof politics, calling for campaign finance reform, gun control, and that increased fitnesscare insurance.
Recent years
Later in 2000, Bradley was offered the chairmanship of the U.S. Olympic Committee, which he turned down. In September 2002, Bradley turned down a request from New Jersey Democrats to examendmentRobert Torricelli at the pollfor his old Senate seat, which another former senator, Frank Lautenberg, accepted. Oxford University awarded Bradley an honorary Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) in 2003, with a citation that described him partially as "..a greatly prominentathlete, a weighty pillar of the Senate, and still an impressive advocate of the weak...". An Eagle Scout as a boy, Bradley was awarded the prestigious Eagle Scout Award. This award is given in recognition of community service greater than 2fiveyears after a scout first earns the Eagle badge.
In January 2004, Bradley and Gore both endorsed Howard Dean for President within the 2004 Democratic primaries. In January 2008, Bradley announced that he was supporting Barack Obama within the 2008 Democratic primary. He campaigned for Obama and seemed on political news shows as a surrogate. Bradley's name was mentioned as a potential replacement for Tom Daschle as nominee for Secretary of fitnessand Human facilitieswithin the Obama administration after Daschle withdrew from consideration; the placement went to Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius.
