Bill Bradley: From Court to Senate

You hear the story all the time: athlete retires, wanders the streets asking everyone for a hand. Ex-basketball star Bill Bradley has gone that route--only with a small twist.

After his retirement from the New York Knicks in 1975, he began pounding the New Jersey pavement pressing the flesh in hopes of gaining one of the Garden State's Senate seats. As most basketball fans and political observers know, Bradley was successful and is in the fourth year of his second career.

And though some have attributed his election in 1978 to his basketball celebrity, no one can accuse 6-ft., 6-in. Bradley of living in the past. In an interview last week before a speech at the Institute of Politics, the exhauster said that he has not played any basketball since retirement.

"I just don't have the urge to play," he said. "And besides," he added, "I just do not have the time."

Journey to the Top

Bradley's return to Harvard provoked mostly barl memories from the Princeton alum about-his trips to the IAB to play the Crimson hoop squad. Although he liked the building and the Tigers won all three games he played there, all Bradley remembers about Harvard is that he hurt his ankle badly in the last game.

"It was one of the most painful injuries I ever suffered," he said. "The walk down the steps of the IAB was very tough."

The '65 Crimson squad probably counted its blessings that Bradley was hobbled, since he managed 51 points in one of the Harvard-Princeton matches the year before.

But Bradley said that he spent some more time around Harvard after his collegiate career. When on the Knicks after a two-year stint as a Rhodes Scholar, Bradley sometimes visited the Coop on trips to Boston to play the Celtics.

"I liked to sit on the ground floor of the annex, read a book and watch the students go by," he added.

Another Win

After his retirement from the Knicks ended, Bradley went on the campaign stump against unknown Republican Geoffrey Bell, armed with high name recognition and what he called "trust."

"They saw that I could handle the pressure on the court and believed I could do the same in the Senate," he commented.

Bradley recalls that people knew his name and would come to see his campaign speeches. "It gave me an opportunity to fail in front of a lot of people," he said.

After his landslide election, Bradley felt he had to prove to the other senators that he was not just a "popular jock." "You do not make it in the Congress on the are of your jump shot but only with a mixture of substance and personality," he explained. But Bradley said he has gotten to the point where people respect him as much for his legislative ability as for his hoop skills.

As for his fitness, Bradley pointed out that his lack of physical activity after he left the Knicks ballooned him to 30 pounds over playing weight. Bradley carried the extra baggage until last year when he decided he was too heavy. So, what would one expect Bradley to do to work off the weight? Probably head to the Senate gym and launch some of those running twenty-footers that led the Knicks to two World Championships. Bradley said, however. "I played no basketball, but a little jogging around the Capitol seemed to do trick."