Bill Bradley
Encyclopedia
William Warren "Bill" Bradley (born July 28, 1943) is an American hall of fame basketball
player, Rhodes scholar
, and former three-term Democratic
U.S. Senator
from New Jersey
. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's nomination for President
in the 2000 election
.
Bradley was born and raised in a suburb of St. Louis
and excelled at basketball from an early age. He was a member of the Boy Scouts
and did well academically, was an all-county and all-state basketball player in high school, and was offered 75 college scholarships. At Princeton University
he earned a gold medal as a member of the 1964 Olympic basketball team and was the NCAA Player of the Year in 1965. After graduating in 1965, he attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship
, delaying a decision for two years on whether or not to play in the NBA
.
While at Oxford, Bradley played one season of professional basketball in Europe, and eventually decided to join the New York Knicks
in the 1967–68 season, after serving six months in the Air Force Reserve. He spent his entire ten-year professional basketball career playing for the Knicks, winning two championship titles. Retiring in 1977, he ran for a seat in the United States Senate
the following year, from his adopted home state of New Jersey
. He was re-elected in 1984 and 1990, left the Senate in 1997, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination
.
Bradley is the author of six non-fiction books, most recently The New American Story, and hosts a weekly radio show, American Voices, on Sirius Satellite Radio
. He is a corporate director of Starbucks
and a partner at investment bank Allen & Company
in New York City.
In 2008 Bradley was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame
.
, the only child of Warren (d. 1994), who despite leaving high school after a year had become a bank president, and Susan "Susie" (née
Crowe) Bradley (d. 1995), a teacher and former high school-basketball player. Politicians and politics were standard dinner-table topics in Bradley's childhood, and he described his father as a "solid Republican" who was an elector for Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential election
. An active Boy Scout
, he became an Eagle Scout
and member of the Order of the Arrow
.
Bradley's wealthy background made his exceptional athletic ability especially unusual. Bradley began playing basketball at the age of nine. He was a star at Crystal City High School, where he scored 3,068 points in his scholastic career, was twice named All-America
n, and was elected to the Missouri Association of Student Councils. He received 75 college scholarship
offers, although he applied to only five schools and only scored a 485 out of 800 on the Verbal portion of the SAT, which—despite being likely in the top third of all test takers that year—normally would have caused selective schools like Princeton University
to reject him.
Bradley's basketball ability benefited from his height—5'9" in the 7th grade, 6'1" in the 8th grade, and his adult size of 6'5" by the age of 15—and unusually wide peripheral vision, which he worked to improve by focusing on faraway objects while walking. During his high school years, Bradley maintained a rigorous practice schedule, a habit he carried through college. He would work on the court for "three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day. He put ten pounds of lead slivers in his sneakers, set up chairs as opponents and dribbled in a slalom fashion around them, and wore eyeglass frames that had a piece of cardboard taped to them so that he could not see the floor, for a good dribbler never looks at the ball."
Considered the top high school player in the country, Bradley initially chose to attend Duke University
in the fall of 1961. However, after breaking his foot in the summer of 1961 during a baseball game and thinking about his college decision outside of basketball, Bradley decided to enroll at Princeton due to its record in preparing students for government or United States Foreign Service
work. He had been awarded a scholarship at Duke, but not at Princeton; the Ivy League
does not allow its members to award athletic scholarships, and Bradley's family's wealth disqualified him from receiving financial aid.
Bradley's childhood hero Dick Kazmaier
had won the Heisman Trophy
at Princeton, and he wore #42 in his honor. In his freshman year, Bradley averaged more than 30 points per game for the freshman team, at one point making 57 consecutive free throw
s, breaking a record set by a member of the NBA's Syracuse Nationals
. The following year, as a sophomore
, he was a varsity starter in Butch van Breda Kolff's first year as coach of the Tigers
.
In his sophomore year Bradley scored 40 points in a 82-81 loss to St. Joseph's
and was named to The Sporting News All-American first team in early 1963. The coach of the St. Louis Hawks
believed he was ready to play professional basketball. The AP
and United Press International
polls both put Bradley on the second team, establishing him as the top sophomore player in the country; Bradley also hit .316 as a first baseman for the baseball team. The following year The Sporting News again named him to its All-American team as its only junior, and as its player of the year. At the Olympic basketball trials in April 1964, Bradley played guard instead of his usual forward position but was still a top performer. He was one of three chosen unanimously for the Olympic team, the youngest chosen, and the only undergraduate. The Olympic team won its sixth consecutive gold medal.
As a senior and team captain in the 1964-1965 season, Bradley became a household name. Only the third tallest on his team, but called "easily the No. 1 player in college basketball today", "the best amateur basketball player in the United States", and "The White O[scar Robertson
]", he scored 41 points in a 80-78 loss to Michigan
, then led Princeton to the Final Four
after defeating heavy favorite Providence
by 40 points. The team lost in the semifinals, but Bradley scored a record 58 points in the consolation game to lead the team to victory against Wichita State
and earn himself the Final Four MVP. In total, Bradley scored 2,503 points at Princeton, averaging 30.2 points per game. He was awarded the 1965 James E. Sullivan Award
, presented annually to the United States' top amateur athlete, the first basketball player to win the honor, and the second Princeton student to win the award, after runner Bill Bonthron in 1934.
Bradley holds a number of 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 most free throws made (153 in 170 attempts, 90.0%, 1962–1963). He also holds the career point record at Princeton and many other school records, including the top ten slots in the category of total points scored in a game, but likely could have scored many more points if he had not insisted so often on passing the ball, in what his coaches called "Bradley's hope passes", to inferior teammates closer to the basket; he only emphasized his own scoring when Princeton was behind or, as during the Wichita State game, his teammates forced Bradley to shoot by returning passes to him. Van Breda Kolff often encouraged Bradley to be more of a "one on one" player, stating that "Bill is not hungry. At least ninety percent of the time, when he gets the ball, he is looking for a pass."
Van Breda Kolff described Bradley as "not the most physical player. Others can run faster and jump higher. The difference...is self-discipline." At Princeton he had three to four hours of classes and four hours of basketball practice daily, studied an average of seven hours each weekday and up to 24 more hours each weekend, frequently spoke for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
around the country, and taught Sunday School at the local Presbyterian Church
. When practicing he did not move from a location on the court unless he made at least ten of 13 shots, and could detect whether a basket was an inch too low from the regulation ten feet.
Improving from his mediocre freshman grades, Bradley graduated magna cum laude after writing his senior thesis about Harry S. Truman
's 1940 United States Senate campaign
, titled "On That Record I Stand", and received a Rhodes Scholarship
at Worcester College
, University of Oxford
. His tenure at Princeton was the subject of Pulitzer Prize
-winning author John McPhee
's 23 January 1965 article "A Sense of Where You Are
" in The New Yorker
, which McPhee expanded into a book of the same name. The title came from Bradley's explanation for his ability to repeatedly throw a basketball over his shoulder and into the basket while looking away from it.
territorial rule was in effect, which gave professional teams first rights to draft
players who attended college within 50 miles of the team. The New York Knicks
—one mile closer to Princeton than the Philadelphia 76ers
—drafted Bradley as a territorial pick the 1965 draft
, but he did not sign a contract with the team immediately. While studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Oxford, he commuted to Italy to play professional basketball in the Lega Basket Serie A for Olimpia Milano
during the 1965–66 season, where the team won a European Champions Cup
.
Bradley dropped out of Oxford two months prior to graduation in April 1967, to go into the Air Force Reserves. After serving six months active duty as an officer (the requirement was 4 years active duty), he joined the New York Knicks in Dec. 1967. The following year Oxford let Bradley take "special exams" and he graduated Oxford in 1968. (On March 6, 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson in a Special Message to the Congress on Selective Service, declared that he would be issuing an Executive Order that no deferments for post-graduate study be granted in the future, except for those men pursuing medical and dental courses.)
In Bradley's rookie season, he joined the team late, having also missed the entire preseason. He was placed in the back court, although he had spent his high school and college careers as a forward. Both he and the team did not do well, and in the following season, he was returned to the forward slot. Then, in his third season, the Knicks won their first-ever NBA championship, followed by the second in the 1972–73 season, when he made the only All-Star Game appearance of his career. Over 742 NBA games - all with the Knicks - Bradley scored a total of 9,217 points, an average of 12.4 points per game, with his best season average being 16.1 points per game in the 1972–73 season. Bradley also averaged 3.4 assists per game.
During his NBA career, Bradley used his fame on the court to explore social as well as 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 Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C., and as a teacher in the street academies of Harlem
. In 1976, he also became an author by publishing Life on the Run. Using a 20-day stretch of time during one season as the main focus of the book, he chronicled his experiences in the NBA and the people he met along the way. He noted in the book that he had initially signed only a four-year contract, and that he was uncomfortable using his celebrity status to earn extra money endorsing products as other players did.
Retiring from basketball in 1977, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982, along with teammate Dave DeBusschere
. In 1984, the Knicks retired his number 24 jersey; he was the fourth player so honored by the Knicks, after Willis Reed
, Walt Frazier
, and DeBusschere.
chamber when the Civil Rights Act of 1964
was passed. Van Breda Kolff and many others who knew him predicted that Bradley would be Governor of Missouri, or President, by 40. He spent his time at Oxford focusing on European political and economic history. In 1978, he said that congressman Mo Udall
, himself a former professional basketball player, had told him ten years earlier that professional sports could help prepare him for politics, depending on what he did with his non-playing time.
Republican
and four-term incumbent Clifford P. Case
. Case lost the primary election
to anti-tax conservative Jeffrey Bell, who, like Bradley, was 34 years old as the campaign season began. Bradley won the seat in the general election
with about 56 percent of the vote. During the campaign, Yale
football player John Spagnola
was Bradley's bodyguard and driver.
In the Senate, Bradley acquired a reputation for being somewhat aloof and was thought of as a "policy wonk", specializing in complex reform initiatives. Among these was the 1986 overhaul of the federal tax code
, co-sponsored with Dick Gephardt
, which reduced the tax rate schedule to just two brackets, 15 percent and 28 percent, and eliminated many kinds of deductions. Domestic policy
initiatives that Bradley led or was associated with included reform of child support
enforcement; legislation concerning lead-related children's health problems; the Earned Income Tax Credit
; campaign finance reform
; a re-apportioning of California water rights; and federal budget
reform to reduce the deficit, which included, in 1981, supporting Reagan's spending cuts but opposing his parallel tax cut
package, one of only three senators to take this position. He sponsored the Freedom Support Act
, an exchange program between the republics of the former Soviet Union and the United States.
Bradley was re-elected in 1984 with 65 percent of the vote against Montclair
mayor Mary V. Mochary
. In 1988, he was encouraged to seek the Democratic nomination for President, but he declined to enter the race, saying that he would know when he was ready. In 1990, a controversy over a state income tax
increase—on which he refused to take a position—and his proposal on merit pay for teachers, which led the NJEA to support his opponent, turned his once-obscure rival for the Senate, Christine Todd Whitman
, into a viable candidate, and Bradley won by only a slim margin. In 1995, he announced he would not to run for re-election, publicly declaring American politics "broken."
While he was a senator, Bradley walked the beaches from Cape May
to Sandy Hook
, a four-day, 127-mile trip each Labor Day
weekend, to assess beach and ocean conditions and talk with constituents.
, opposing incumbent Vice President
Al Gore
for his party's nomination. Bradley campaigned as the liberal alternative to Gore, taking positions to the left of Gore on a number of issues, including universal health care
, gun control
, and campaign finance reform
. On the issue of taxes, Bradley trumpeted his sponsorship of the Tax Reform Act of 1986
, which had significantly cut tax rates while abolishing dozens of loophole
s. He voiced his belief that the best possible tax code would be one with low rates and no loopholes, but he refused to rule out the idea of raising taxes to pay for his health care program, calling the idea of such a pledge "dishonest".
On public education, he proposed to make over $2 billion in block grant
s available to each state every year. He further promised to bring 60,000 new teachers into the education system in hard-to-staff areas over ten years by offering college
scholarship
s to anyone who agreed to become a teacher after graduating; Gore offered a similar proposal.
Bradley also made child poverty
a significant issue in his campaign. He promised to address the minimum wage
, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit
, allow single parent
s on welfare to keep their child support
payments, make the Dependent Care Tax Credit
refundable, build support homes for pregnant teenagers
, enroll 400,000 more children in Head Start, and increase the availability of food stamps
.
Although Gore was considered the party favorite, Bradley received a number of high-profile endorsements, including senators Paul Wellstone
, Bob Kerrey
, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan
; former Secretary of Labor
Robert Reich
; former New York City mayor Ed Koch
; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker
; and basketball stars Michael Jordan
and Phil Jackson
. Bradley and Jackson have been close friends since they were teammates playing for the New York Knicks
. Jackson was a vocal supporter of Bradley's run for the presidency and often wore his campaign button in public. He announced his acceptance of the position of head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers
while Bradley was campaigning in California in 1999, and he was a "regular draw on the Bradley money trail" during the campaign. Bradley later called it a "great honor" to be the presenter when Jackson was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
In March 2000, after failing to win any of the first 20 primaries and caucuses in the election process, Bradley withdrew his campaign and endorsed Gore; he ruled out the idea of running as the vice-presidential candidate and did not answer questions about possible future runs for the presidency. He said that he would continue to speak out regarding his brand of politics, calling for campaign finance reform, gun control, and increased health care insurance.
, which he turned down. In September 2002
, Bradley turned down a request from New Jersey Democrats to replace Robert Torricelli
on the ballot for 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 in part as "..an outstandingly distinguished athlete, a weighty pillar of the Senate, and still a powerful advocate of the weak...". In 2007 Bradley was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award
. This award is given in recognition of community service more than 25 years after a scout first earns the Eagle badge.
In January 2004, Bradley and Gore both endorsed Howard Dean
for President in the 2004 Democratic primaries. In January 2008, Bradley announced that he was supporting Barack Obama
in the 2008 Democratic primary
. He campaigned for Obama and appeared on political news shows as a surrogate. Bradley's name was mentioned as a possible replacement for Tom Daschle
as nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration after Daschle withdrew from consideration; the position went to Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius
.
He has worked as a corporate consultant
and investment banker. He has been a managing director of Allen & Company LLC, since 2001, was chief outside advisor to McKinsey & Company
's nonprofit division, the McKinsey Global Institute, from 2001 to 2004, and is a member of the board of directors of Starbucks
and private company Raydiance. Bill Bradley is also a board member of DonorsChoose.org, an online charity that connects individuals to classrooms in need. He is also the Chair of the Advisory Council for Acumen Fund
, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.
Misslbeck) Schlant, a German-born professor
of comparative literature
, in 1974. She has a daughter, Stephanie, from a previous marriage, and they have one daughter, Theresa Anne. Bradley and Schlant divorced in 2007, and he lives with former LBJ Library director Betty Sue Flowers
.
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
player, Rhodes scholar
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
, and former three-term Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
U.S. Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
from New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. He ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic Party's nomination for President
Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2000
The 2000 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2000 U.S. presidential election...
in the 2000 election
United States presidential election, 2000
The United States presidential election of 2000 was a contest between Republican candidate George W. Bush, then-governor of Texas and son of former president George H. W. Bush , and Democratic candidate Al Gore, then-Vice President....
.
Bradley was born and raised in a suburb of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and excelled at basketball from an early age. He was a member of the Boy Scouts
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...
and did well academically, was an all-county and all-state basketball player in high school, and was offered 75 college scholarships. At Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
he earned a gold medal as a member of the 1964 Olympic basketball team and was the NCAA Player of the Year in 1965. After graduating in 1965, he attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
, delaying a decision for two years on whether or not to play in the NBA
National Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
.
While at Oxford, Bradley played one season of professional basketball in Europe, and eventually decided to join the New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
in the 1967–68 season, after serving six months in the Air Force Reserve. He spent his entire ten-year professional basketball career playing for the Knicks, winning two championship titles. Retiring in 1977, he ran for a seat in the United States Senate
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
the following year, from his adopted home state of New Jersey
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
. He was re-elected in 1984 and 1990, left the Senate in 1997, and was an unsuccessful candidate for the 2000 Democratic presidential nomination
Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2000
The 2000 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2000 U.S. presidential election...
.
Bradley is the author of six non-fiction books, most recently The New American Story, and hosts a weekly radio show, American Voices, on Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio
Sirius Satellite Radio is a satellite radio service operating in North America, owned by Sirius XM Radio.Headquartered in New York City, with smaller studios in Los Angeles and Memphis, Sirius was officially launched on July 1, 2002 and currently provides 69 streams of music and 65 streams of...
. He is a corporate director of Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
and a partner at investment bank Allen & Company
Allen & Company
Allen & Company is a boutique investment bank based at 711 Fifth Avenue, New York City.-History:Founded in 1922 by Charles Robert Allen, Jr., he was soon joined by his brother, Herbert A. Allen, Sr...
in New York City.
In 2008 Bradley was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame
New Jersey Hall of Fame
The New Jersey Hall of Fame is an organization that honors individuals from the U.S. state of New Jersey who have made contributions to society and the world beyond....
.
Early life
Bradley was born on July 28, 1943 in Crystal City, MissouriCrystal City, Missouri
Crystal City is a city in Jefferson County, Missouri, United States. The population was 4,523 at the estimated 2009 census. It was 4,247 at the 2000 census....
, the only child of Warren (d. 1994), who despite leaving high school after a year had become a bank president, and Susan "Susie" (née
Married and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Crowe) Bradley (d. 1995), a teacher and former high school-basketball player. Politicians and politics were standard dinner-table topics in Bradley's childhood, and he described his father as a "solid Republican" who was an elector for Thomas E. Dewey in the 1948 presidential election
United States presidential election, 1948
The United States presidential election of 1948 is considered by most historians as the greatest election upset in American history. Virtually every prediction indicated that incumbent President Harry S. Truman would be defeated by Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Truman won, overcoming a three-way...
. An active Boy Scout
Boy Scouts of America
The Boy Scouts of America is one of the largest youth organizations in the United States, with over 4.5 million youth members in its age-related divisions...
, he became an Eagle Scout
Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts of America)
Eagle Scout is the highest rank attainable in the Boy Scouting program of the Boy Scouts of America . A Scout who attains this rank is called an Eagle Scout or Eagle. Since its introduction in 1911, the Eagle Scout rank has been earned by more than 2 million young men...
and member of the Order of the Arrow
Order of the Arrow
The Order of the Arrow is the national honor society of the Boy Scouts of America . It uses American Indian-styled traditions and ceremonies to bestow recognition on scouts selected by their peers as best exemplifying the ideals of Scouting. The society was created by E. Urner Goodman, with the...
.
Bradley's wealthy background made his exceptional athletic ability especially unusual. Bradley began playing basketball at the age of nine. He was a star at Crystal City High School, where he scored 3,068 points in his scholastic career, was twice named All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
n, and was elected to the Missouri Association of Student Councils. He received 75 college scholarship
Athletic scholarship
An athletic scholarship is a form of scholarship to attend a college or university awarded to an individual based predominantly on his or her ability to play in a sport...
offers, although he applied to only five schools and only scored a 485 out of 800 on the Verbal portion of the SAT, which—despite being likely in the top third of all test takers that year—normally would have caused selective schools like Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
to reject him.
Bradley's basketball ability benefited from his height—5'9" in the 7th grade, 6'1" in the 8th grade, and his adult size of 6'5" by the age of 15—and unusually wide peripheral vision, which he worked to improve by focusing on faraway objects while walking. During his high school years, Bradley maintained a rigorous practice schedule, a habit he carried through college. He would work on the court for "three and a half hours every day after school, nine to five on Saturday, one-thirty to five on Sunday, and, in the summer, about three hours a day. He put ten pounds of lead slivers in his sneakers, set up chairs as opponents and dribbled in a slalom fashion around them, and wore eyeglass frames that had a piece of cardboard taped to them so that he could not see the floor, for a good dribbler never looks at the ball."
College
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...
in the fall of 1961. However, after breaking his foot in the summer of 1961 during a baseball game and thinking about his college decision outside of basketball, Bradley decided to enroll at Princeton due to its record in preparing students for government or United States Foreign Service
United States Foreign Service
The United States Foreign Service is a component of the United States federal government under the aegis of the United States Department of State. It consists of approximately 11,500 professionals carrying out the foreign policy of the United States and aiding U.S...
work. He had been awarded a scholarship at Duke, but not at Princeton; the Ivy League
Ivy League
The Ivy League is an athletic conference comprising eight private institutions of higher education in the Northeastern United States. The conference name is also commonly used to refer to those eight schools as a group...
does not allow its members to award athletic scholarships, and Bradley's family's wealth disqualified him from receiving financial aid.
Bradley's childhood hero Dick Kazmaier
Dick Kazmaier
Richard Kazmaier was an American football player for Princeton University from 1949 through 1951 and winner of the 1951 Heisman Trophy. As a halfback, kicker and quarterback, he ended his career third all time in Princeton history with over 4000 yards of offense and 55 touchdowns...
had won the Heisman Trophy
Heisman Trophy
The Heisman Memorial Trophy Award , is awarded annually to the player deemed the most outstanding player in collegiate football. It was created in 1935 as the Downtown Athletic Club trophy and renamed in 1936 following the death of the Club's athletic director, John Heisman The Heisman Memorial...
at Princeton, and he wore #42 in his honor. In his freshman year, Bradley averaged more than 30 points per game for the freshman team, at one point making 57 consecutive free throw
Free throw
In basketball, free throws or foul shots are unopposed attempts to score points from a restricted area on the court , and are generally awarded after a foul on the shooter by the opposing team...
s, breaking a record set by a member of the NBA's Syracuse Nationals
Syracuse Nationals
The Syracuse Nationals were an American professional basketball team that existed from 1946 to 1963 as part of the National Basketball League and National Basketball Association . They are currently known as the Philadelphia 76ers, and are the NBA's oldest continued franchise.The team began in...
. The following year, as a sophomore
Sophomore
Sophomore is a term used in the United States to describe a student in the second year of study at high school or university.The word is also used as a synonym for "second", for the second album or EP released by a musician or group, the second movie of a director, or the second season of a...
, he was a varsity starter in Butch van Breda Kolff's first year as coach of the Tigers
Princeton Tigers men's basketball
The Princeton Tigers men's basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball program representing Princeton University. The school competes in the Ivy League in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association . The Tigers play home basketball games at the Jadwin Gymnasium in...
.
In his sophomore year Bradley scored 40 points in a 82-81 loss to St. Joseph's
Saint Joseph's Hawks men's basketball
The Saint Joseph's Hawks men's basketball team represents Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Its home court is the Hagan Arena. The team's only Final Four appearance in 1961 was removed from the NCAA records due to a gambling scandal. Through...
and was named to The Sporting News All-American first team in early 1963. The coach of the St. Louis Hawks
Atlanta Hawks
The Atlanta Hawks are an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia. They are part of the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association .-The first years:...
believed he was ready to play professional basketball. The AP
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
and United Press International
United Press International
United Press International is a once-major international news agency, whose newswires, photo, news film and audio services provided news material to thousands of newspapers, magazines and radio and television stations for most of the twentieth century...
polls both put Bradley on the second team, establishing him as the top sophomore player in the country; Bradley also hit .316 as a first baseman for the baseball team. The following year The Sporting News again named him to its All-American team as its only junior, and as its player of the year. At the Olympic basketball trials in April 1964, Bradley played guard instead of his usual forward position but was still a top performer. He was one of three chosen unanimously for the Olympic team, the youngest chosen, and the only undergraduate. The Olympic team won its sixth consecutive gold medal.
As a senior and team captain in the 1964-1965 season, Bradley became a household name. Only the third tallest on his team, but called "easily the No. 1 player in college basketball today", "the best amateur basketball player in the United States", and "The White O[scar Robertson
Oscar Robertson
Oscar Palmer Robertson , nicknamed "The Big O", is a former American NBA player with the Cincinnati Royals and the Milwaukee Bucks...
]", he scored 41 points in a 80-78 loss to Michigan
Michigan Wolverines men's basketball
The Michigan Wolverines men's basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball program representing the University of Michigan. The school competes in the Big Ten Conference in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association . The Wolverines play home basketball games at the...
, then led Princeton to the Final Four
1965 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament
The 1965 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament involved 23 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 8, 1965, and ended with the championship game on March 20 in Portland, Oregon...
after defeating heavy favorite Providence
Providence Friars men's basketball
The Providence Friars men's basketball team represents Providence College in NCAA Division I competition, in which they are a founding member of the Big East Conference. They play their home games at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence, Rhode Island...
by 40 points. The team lost in the semifinals, but Bradley scored a record 58 points in the consolation game to lead the team to victory against Wichita State
Wichita State Shockers men's basketball
The Wichita State Shockers basketball team is the NCAA Division I men's basketball program of Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas. They currently compete in the Missouri Valley Conference...
and earn himself the Final Four MVP. In total, Bradley scored 2,503 points at Princeton, averaging 30.2 points per game. He was awarded the 1965 James E. Sullivan Award
James E. Sullivan Award
The James E. Sullivan Award, presented by the American Amateur Athletic Union , is awarded annually in April to "the outstanding amateur athlete in the United States". Often referred to as the Oscar of sports awards, it was first presented in 1930. The award is named for the AAU's founder and past...
, presented annually to the United States' top amateur athlete, the first basketball player to win the honor, and the second Princeton student to win the award, after runner Bill Bonthron in 1934.
Bradley holds a number of 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 most free throws made (153 in 170 attempts, 90.0%, 1962–1963). He also holds the career point record at Princeton and many other school records, including the top ten slots in the category of total points scored in a game, but likely could have scored many more points if he had not insisted so often on passing the ball, in what his coaches called "Bradley's hope passes", to inferior teammates closer to the basket; he only emphasized his own scoring when Princeton was behind or, as during the Wichita State game, his teammates forced Bradley to shoot by returning passes to him. Van Breda Kolff often encouraged Bradley to be more of a "one on one" player, stating that "Bill is not hungry. At least ninety percent of the time, when he gets the ball, he is looking for a pass."
Van Breda Kolff described Bradley as "not the most physical player. Others can run faster and jump higher. The difference...is self-discipline." At Princeton he had three to four hours of classes and four hours of basketball practice daily, studied an average of seven hours each weekday and up to 24 more hours each weekend, frequently spoke for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes
Fellowship of Christian Athletes
The Fellowship of Christian Athletes is a non-profit interdenominational Christian organization founded in 1954 and that has been based in Kansas City, Missouri since 1956. It falls within the tradition of Muscular Christianity. Although established by evangelical Protestants, the concept has...
around the country, and taught Sunday School at the local Presbyterian Church
Nassau Presbyterian Church
The Nassau Presbyterian Church is located at 61 Nassau Street in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The church operates the Princeton Cemetery. The current pastor is The Reverend Dr. David A. Davis.-First church:...
. When practicing he did not move from a location on the court unless he made at least ten of 13 shots, and could detect whether a basket was an inch too low from the regulation ten feet.
Improving from his mediocre freshman grades, Bradley graduated magna cum laude after writing his senior thesis about Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman
Harry S. Truman was the 33rd President of the United States . As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice president and the 34th Vice President of the United States , he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his...
's 1940 United States Senate campaign
Electoral history of Harry S. Truman
Electoral history of Harry S. Truman, 33rd President of the United States, 34th Vice President of the United States and United States Senator from Missouri-United States Senate races, 1934-1940:...
, titled "On That Record I Stand", and received a Rhodes Scholarship
Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship, named after Cecil Rhodes, is an international postgraduate award for study at the University of Oxford. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships, and is widely considered the "world's most prestigious scholarship" by many public sources such as...
at Worcester College
Worcester College, Oxford
Worcester College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. The college was founded in the eighteenth century, but its predecessor on the same site had been an institution of learning since the late thirteenth century...
, University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
. His tenure at Princeton was the subject of Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning author John McPhee
John McPhee
John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
's 23 January 1965 article "A Sense of Where You Are
A Sense of Where You Are
In A Sense of Where You Are, John McPhee profiles Bill Bradley during Bradley's senior year at Princeton University. Bradley, who would later play in the National Basketball Association and serve in the United States Senate, was widely regarded as one of the best basketball players in the country,...
" in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, which McPhee expanded into a book of the same name. The title came from Bradley's explanation for his ability to repeatedly throw a basketball over his shoulder and into the basket while looking away from it.
Professional
Bradley's graduation year, 1965, was the last year that the NBA'sNational Basketball Association
The National Basketball Association is the pre-eminent men's professional basketball league in North America. It consists of thirty franchised member clubs, of which twenty-nine are located in the United States and one in Canada...
territorial rule was in effect, which gave professional teams first rights to draft
Draft (sports)
A draft is a process used in the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, Russia and the Philippines to allocate certain players to sports teams. In a draft, teams take turns selecting from a pool of eligible players...
players who attended college within 50 miles of the team. The New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
—one mile closer to Princeton than the Philadelphia 76ers
Philadelphia 76ers
The Philadelphia 76ers are a professional basketball team based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They play in the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Basketball Association . Originally known as the Syracuse Nationals, they are one of the oldest franchises in the NBA...
—drafted Bradley as a territorial pick the 1965 draft
1965 NBA Draft
The 1965 NBA Draft was the 19th annual draft of the National Basketball Association . The draft was held on May 6, 1965, before the 1965–66 season....
, but he did not sign a contract with the team immediately. While studying Politics, Philosophy, and Economics at Oxford, he commuted to Italy to play professional basketball in the Lega Basket Serie A for Olimpia Milano
Olimpia Milano
Olimpia Milano is a Lega Basket Italian professional basketball team, based in Milan, Italy, founded in 1936 by Milan businessman Adolfo Bogoncelli. Its colors are red and white, and the team is sometimes referred as "Scarpette Rosse" because team officials imported from the United States red...
during the 1965–66 season, where the team won a European Champions Cup
Euroleague
Euroleague Basketball, commonly known as the Euroleague, is the highest level tier and most important professional club basketball competition in Europe, with teams from up to 18 different countries, members of FIBA Europe. For sponsorship reasons, for five seasons starting with 2010–2011, it is...
.
Bradley dropped out of Oxford two months prior to graduation in April 1967, to go into the Air Force Reserves. After serving six months active duty as an officer (the requirement was 4 years active duty), he joined the New York Knicks in Dec. 1967. The following year Oxford let Bradley take "special exams" and he graduated Oxford in 1968. (On March 6, 1967, Lyndon B. Johnson in a Special Message to the Congress on Selective Service, declared that he would be issuing an Executive Order that no deferments for post-graduate study be granted in the future, except for those men pursuing medical and dental courses.)
In Bradley's rookie season, he joined the team late, having also missed the entire preseason. He was placed in the back court, although he had spent his high school and college careers as a forward. Both he and the team did not do well, and in the following season, he was returned to the forward slot. Then, in his third season, the Knicks won their first-ever NBA championship, followed by the second in the 1972–73 season, when he made the only All-Star Game appearance of his career. Over 742 NBA games - all with the Knicks - Bradley scored a total of 9,217 points, an average of 12.4 points per game, with his best season average being 16.1 points per game in the 1972–73 season. Bradley also averaged 3.4 assists per game.
During his NBA career, Bradley used his fame on the court to explore social as well as 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 Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C., and as a teacher in the street academies of Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. In 1976, he also became an author by publishing Life on the Run. Using a 20-day stretch of time during one season as the main focus of the book, he chronicled his experiences in the NBA and the people he met along the way. He noted in the book that he had initially signed only a four-year contract, and that he was uncomfortable using his celebrity status to earn extra money endorsing products as other players did.
Retiring from basketball in 1977, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982, along with teammate Dave DeBusschere
Dave DeBusschere
David Albert DeBusschere was an American NBA and major league baseball player and coach in the NBA. In 1996, DeBusschere was named as one of the 50 greatest players in NBA history....
. In 1984, the Knicks retired his number 24 jersey; he was the fourth player so honored by the Knicks, after Willis Reed
Willis Reed
Willis Reed, Jr. is a retired American basketball player, coach and manager of basketball teams. He spent his entire professional playing career with the New York Knicks. In 1982, his outstanding record and achievements were recognized by his induction into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall...
, Walt Frazier
Walt Frazier
Walter "Clyde" Frazier is a retired American basketball player in the National Basketball Association . He was blessed with a unique combination of court vision, quickness, and size for a guard...
, and DeBusschere.
Politics
Politics was a frequent subject of discussion in the Bradley household, and some of his relatives held local and county political offices. He majored in history at Princeton, and was present in the SenateUnited States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
chamber when the Civil Rights Act of 1964
Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed major forms of discrimination against African Americans and women, including racial segregation...
was passed. Van Breda Kolff and many others who knew him predicted that Bradley would be Governor of Missouri, or President, by 40. He spent his time at Oxford focusing on European political and economic history. In 1978, he said that congressman Mo Udall
Mo Udall
Morris King "Mo" Udall was an American politician who served as a U.S. Representative from Arizona from May 2, 1961 to May 4, 1991...
, himself a former professional basketball player, had told him ten years earlier that professional sports could help prepare him for politics, depending on what he did with his non-playing time.
Senate
After four years of political campaigning for Democratic candidates around New Jersey, Bradley decided in the summer of 1977 to run for the Senate himself, coinciding with his retirement from the Knicks. He felt his time had been well-spent in "paying his dues". The seat was held by liberalLiberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
Republican
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
and four-term incumbent Clifford P. Case
Clifford P. Case
Clifford Philip Case was an American lawyer and Republican Party politician who represented in the United States House of Representatives and the State of New Jersey in the United States Senate .-Biography:Clifford P. Case was born in Franklin Park in Somerset County, New Jersey...
. Case lost the primary election
Primary election
A primary election is an election in which party members or voters select candidates for a subsequent election. Primary elections are one means by which a political party nominates candidates for the next general election....
to anti-tax conservative Jeffrey Bell, who, like Bradley, was 34 years old as the campaign season began. Bradley won the seat in the general election
General election
In a parliamentary political system, a general election is an election in which all or most members of a given political body are chosen. The term is usually used to refer to elections held for a nation's primary legislative body, as distinguished from by-elections and local elections.The term...
with about 56 percent of the vote. During the campaign, Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
football player John Spagnola
John Spagnola
John Stephen Spagnola is a former professional American football tight end in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles, Seattle Seahawks, and the Green Bay Packers.-Early life:...
was Bradley's bodyguard and driver.
In the Senate, Bradley acquired a reputation for being somewhat aloof and was thought of as a "policy wonk", specializing in complex reform initiatives. Among these was the 1986 overhaul of the federal tax code
Tax code
In the UK, every person paid under the PAYE scheme is allocated a tax code by HM Revenue and Customs. This is usually in the form of a number followed by a letter suffix, though other 'non-standard' codes are also used. This code describes to employers how much tax to deduct from an employee. The...
, co-sponsored with Dick Gephardt
Dick Gephardt
Richard Andrew "Dick" Gephardt is a lobbyist and former prominent American politician of the Democratic Party. Gephardt served as a U.S. Representative from Missouri from January 3, 1977, until January 3, 2005, serving as House Majority Leader from 1989 to 1995, and as Minority Leader from 1995 to...
, which reduced the tax rate schedule to just two brackets, 15 percent and 28 percent, and eliminated many kinds of deductions. Domestic policy
Domestic policy
Domestic policy, also known as public policy, presents decisions, laws, and programs made by the government which are directly related to all issues and activity within the country....
initiatives that Bradley led or was associated with included reform of child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
enforcement; legislation concerning lead-related children's health problems; the Earned Income Tax Credit
Earned income tax credit
The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit is a refundable tax credit primarily for individuals and families who have low to moderate earned income. Greater tax credit is given to those who also have qualifying children...
; campaign finance reform
Campaign finance reform
Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns....
; a re-apportioning of California water rights; and federal budget
Budget
A budget is a financial plan and a list of all planned expenses and revenues. It is a plan for saving, borrowing and spending. A budget is an important concept in microeconomics, which uses a budget line to illustrate the trade-offs between two or more goods...
reform to reduce the deficit, which included, in 1981, supporting Reagan's spending cuts but opposing his parallel tax cut
Tax cut
A tax cut is a reduction in taxes. The immediate effects of a tax cut are a decrease in the real income of the government and an increase in the real income of those whose tax rate has been lowered. Due to the perceived benefit in growing real incomes among tax payers politicians have sought to...
package, one of only three senators to take this position. He sponsored the Freedom Support Act
Freedom Support Act
The FREEDOM Support Act of 1992 is an act passed by the United States Congress. It is not to be confused with the Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005 ....
, an exchange program between the republics of the former Soviet Union and the United States.
Bradley was re-elected in 1984 with 65 percent of the vote against Montclair
Montclair, New Jersey
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 38,977 people, 15,020 households, and 9,687 families residing in the township. The population density was 6,183.6 people per square mile . There were 15,531 housing units at an average density of 2,464.0 per square mile...
mayor Mary V. Mochary
Mary V. Mochary
Mary Veronica Kasser Mochary is an American attorney and Republican Party politician from New Jersey...
. In 1988, he was encouraged to seek the Democratic nomination for President, but he declined to enter the race, saying that he would know when he was ready. In 1990, a controversy over a state income tax
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
increase—on which he refused to take a position—and his proposal on merit pay for teachers, which led the NJEA to support his opponent, turned his once-obscure rival for the Senate, Christine Todd Whitman
Christine Todd Whitman
Christine Todd "Christie" Whitman is an American Republican politician and author who served as the 50th Governor of New Jersey from 1994 to 2001, and was the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency in the administration of President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2003. She was New...
, into a viable candidate, and Bradley won by only a slim margin. In 1995, he announced he would not to run for re-election, publicly declaring American politics "broken."
While he was a senator, Bradley walked the beaches from Cape May
Cape May, New Jersey
Cape May is a city at the southern tip of Cape May Peninsula in Cape May County, New Jersey, where the Delaware Bay meets the Atlantic Ocean and is one of the country's oldest vacation resort destinations. It is part of the Ocean City Metropolitan Statistical Area. As of the 2010 United States...
to Sandy Hook
Sandy Hook
Sandy Hook is a barrier spit along the Atlantic coast of New JerseySandy Hook may also refer to:-Places:United States* Sandy Hook , a village in the town of Newtown, Connecticut* Sandy Hook, Kentucky, a city in Elliott County...
, a four-day, 127-mile trip each Labor Day
Labor Day
Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September that celebrates the economic and social contributions of workers.-History:...
weekend, to assess beach and ocean conditions and talk with constituents.
Presidential candidate
Bradley ran in the 2000 presidential primariesDemocratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2000
The 2000 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2000 U.S. presidential election...
, opposing incumbent Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Al Gore
Al Gore
Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. served as the 45th Vice President of the United States , under President Bill Clinton. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for President in the 2000 U.S. presidential election....
for his party's nomination. Bradley campaigned as the liberal alternative to Gore, taking positions to the left of Gore on a number of issues, including universal health care
Universal health care
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision.-History:...
, gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
, and campaign finance reform
Campaign finance reform
Campaign finance reform is the common term for the political effort in the United States to change the involvement of money in politics, primarily in political campaigns....
. On the issue of taxes, Bradley trumpeted his sponsorship of the Tax Reform Act of 1986
Tax Reform Act of 1986
The U.S. Congress passed the Tax Reform Act of 1986 to simplify the income tax code, broaden the tax base and eliminate many tax shelters and other preferences...
, which had significantly cut tax rates while abolishing dozens of loophole
Loophole
A loophole is a weakness that allows a system to be circumvented.Loophole may also refer to:*Arrowslit, a slit in a castle wall*Loophole , a short science fiction story by Arthur C...
s. He voiced his belief that the best possible tax code would be one with low rates and no loopholes, but he refused to rule out the idea of raising taxes to pay for his health care program, calling the idea of such a pledge "dishonest".
On public education, he proposed to make over $2 billion in block grant
Block grant
In a fiscal federal form of government, a block grant is a large sum of money granted by the national government to a regional government with only general provisions as to the way it is to be spent...
s available to each state every year. He further promised to bring 60,000 new teachers into the education system in hard-to-staff areas over ten years by offering college
College
A college is an educational institution or a constituent part of an educational institution. Usage varies in English-speaking nations...
scholarship
Scholarship
A scholarship is an award of financial aid for a student to further education. Scholarships are awarded on various criteria usually reflecting the values and purposes of the donor or founder of the award.-Types:...
s to anyone who agreed to become a teacher after graduating; Gore offered a similar proposal.
Bradley also made child poverty
Child poverty
Child poverty refers to the phenomenon of children living in poverty. This applies to children that come from poor families or orphans being raised with limited, or in some cases absent, state resources. Children that fail to meet the minimum acceptable standard of life for the nation where that...
a significant issue in his campaign. He promised to address the minimum wage
Minimum wage
A minimum wage is the lowest hourly, daily or monthly remuneration that employers may legally pay to workers. Equivalently, it is the lowest wage at which workers may sell their labour. Although minimum wage laws are in effect in a great many jurisdictions, there are differences of opinion about...
, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit
Earned income tax credit
The United States federal earned income tax credit or earned income credit is a refundable tax credit primarily for individuals and families who have low to moderate earned income. Greater tax credit is given to those who also have qualifying children...
, allow single parent
Single parent
Single parent is a term that is mostly used to suggest that one parent has most of the day to day responsibilities in the raising of the child or children, which would categorize them as the dominant caregiver...
s on welfare to keep their child support
Child support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
payments, make the Dependent Care Tax Credit
Child tax credit
A child tax credit is the name for tax credits issued in some countries that depends on the number of dependent children in a family. The credit may depend on other factors as well: typically it depends on income level. For example, in the United States, only families making less than $110K per...
refundable, build support homes for pregnant teenagers
Teenage pregnancy
Teenage pregnancy is a pregnancy of a female under the age of 20 when the pregnancy ends. It generally refers to a female who is unmarried and usually refers to an unplanned pregnancy...
, enroll 400,000 more children in Head Start, and increase the availability of food stamps
Food Stamp Program
The United States Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program , historically and commonly known as the Food Stamp Program, is a federal-assistance program that provides assistance to low- and no-income people and families living in the U.S. Though the program is administered by the U.S. Department of...
.
Although Gore was considered the party favorite, Bradley received a number of high-profile endorsements, including senators Paul Wellstone
Paul Wellstone
Paul David Wellstone was a two-term U.S. Senator from the state of Minnesota and member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which is affiliated with the national Democratic Party. Before being elected to the Senate in 1990, he was a professor of political science at Carleton College...
, Bob Kerrey
Bob Kerrey
Joseph Robert "Bob" Kerrey was the 35th Governor of Nebraska from 1983 to 1987 and a U.S. Senator from Nebraska . Having served in the Vietnam War, earning the Medal of Honor for his actions, he moved into politics. He was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1992...
, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Daniel Patrick "Pat" Moynihan was an American politician and sociologist. A member of the Democratic Party, he was first elected to the United States Senate for New York in 1976, and was re-elected three times . He declined to run for re-election in 2000...
; former Secretary of Labor
United States Secretary of Labor
The United States Secretary of Labor is the head of the Department of Labor who exercises control over the department and enforces and suggests laws involving unions, the workplace, and all other issues involving any form of business-person controversies....
Robert Reich
Robert Reich
Robert Bernard Reich is an American political economist, professor, author, and political commentator. He served in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter and was Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997....
; former New York City mayor Ed Koch
Ed Koch
Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...
; former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker
Paul Volcker
Paul Adolph Volcker, Jr. is an American economist. He was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve under United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan from August 1979 to August 1987. He is widely credited with ending the high levels of inflation seen in the United States in the 1970s and...
; and basketball stars Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan
Michael Jeffrey Jordan is a former American professional basketball player, active entrepreneur, and majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats...
and Phil Jackson
Phil Jackson
Philip Douglas "Phil" Jackson is a retired American professional basketball coach and player. Jackson is widely considered one of the greatest coaches in the history of the National Basketball Association . His reputation was established as head coach of the Chicago Bulls from 1989 through 1998;...
. Bradley and Jackson have been close friends since they were teammates playing for the New York Knicks
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, prominently known as the Knicks, are a professional basketball team based in New York City. They are part of the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association...
. Jackson was a vocal supporter of Bradley's run for the presidency and often wore his campaign button in public. He announced his acceptance of the position of head coach of the Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers
The Los Angeles Lakers are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles, California. They play in the Pacific Division of the Western Conference in the National Basketball Association...
while Bradley was campaigning in California in 1999, and he was a "regular draw on the Bradley money trail" during the campaign. Bradley later called it a "great honor" to be the presenter when Jackson was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
In March 2000, after failing to win any of the first 20 primaries and caucuses in the election process, Bradley withdrew his campaign and endorsed Gore; he ruled out the idea of running as the vice-presidential candidate and did not answer questions about possible future runs for the presidency. He said that he would continue to speak out regarding his brand of politics, calling for campaign finance reform, gun control, and increased health care insurance.
After politics
Later in 2000, Bradley was offered the chairmanship of the United States Olympic CommitteeUnited States Olympic Committee
The United States Olympic Committee is a non-profit organization that serves as the National Olympic Committee and National Paralympic Committee for the United States and coordinates the relationship between the United States Anti-Doping Agency and the World Anti-Doping Agency and various...
, which he turned down. In September 2002
United States Senate election in New Jersey, 2002
The 2000 United States Senate election in New Jersey was held on November 5, 2002. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Robert Torricelli decided to retire. Democrat Frank Lautenberg won the open seat.- Campaign :...
, Bradley turned down a request from New Jersey Democrats to replace Robert Torricelli
Robert Torricelli
Robert Guy Torricelli , nicknamed "the Torch," is an American politician from the U.S. state of New Jersey. Torricelli, a Democrat, served 14 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before being elected to the U.S. Senate...
on the ballot for his old Senate seat, which another former senator, Frank Lautenberg
Frank Lautenberg
Frank Raleigh Lautenberg is the senior United States Senator from New Jersey and a member of the Democratic Party. Previously, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Automatic Data Processing, Inc.-Early life, career, and family:...
, accepted. Oxford University awarded Bradley an honorary Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) in 2003, with a citation that described him in part as "..an outstandingly distinguished athlete, a weighty pillar of the Senate, and still a powerful advocate of the weak...". In 2007 Bradley was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award
Distinguished Eagle Scout Award
The Distinguished Eagle Scout Award is a distinguished service award of the Boy Scouts of America . It is awarded to an Eagle Scout for distinguished service in his profession and to his community for a period of at least 25 years after attaining the level of Eagle Scout...
. This award is given in recognition of community service more than 25 years after a scout first earns the Eagle badge.
In January 2004, Bradley and Gore both endorsed Howard Dean
Howard Dean
Howard Brush Dean III is an American politician and physician from Vermont. He served six terms as the 79th Governor of Vermont and ran unsuccessfully for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2005 to 2009. Although his U.S...
for President in the 2004 Democratic primaries. In January 2008, Bradley announced that he was supporting Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
in the 2008 Democratic primary
Democratic Party (United States) presidential primaries, 2008
The 2008 Democratic presidential primaries were the selection process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose its nominee for President of the United States in the 2008 U.S. presidential election...
. He campaigned for Obama and appeared on political news shows as a surrogate. Bradley's name was mentioned as a possible replacement for Tom Daschle
Tom Daschle
Thomas Andrew "Tom" Daschle is a former U.S. Senator from South Dakota and former U.S. Senate Majority Leader. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
as nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration after Daschle withdrew from consideration; the position went to Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius
Kathleen Sebelius is an American politician currently serving as the 21st Secretary of Health and Human Services. She was the second female Governor of Kansas from 2003 to 2009, the Democratic respondent to the 2008 State of the Union address, and chair-emerita of the Democratic Governors...
.
He has worked as a corporate consultant
Consultant
A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice in a particular area such as management, accountancy, the environment, entertainment, technology, law , human resources, marketing, emergency management, food production, medicine, finance, life management, economics, public...
and investment banker. He has been a managing director of Allen & Company LLC, since 2001, was chief outside advisor to McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company, Inc. is a global management consulting firm that focuses on solving issues of concern to senior management. McKinsey serves as an adviser to many businesses, governments, and institutions...
's nonprofit division, the McKinsey Global Institute, from 2001 to 2004, and is a member of the board of directors of Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
and private company Raydiance. Bill Bradley is also a board member of DonorsChoose.org, an online charity that connects individuals to classrooms in need. He is also the Chair of the Advisory Council for Acumen Fund
Acumen Fund
Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Its aim is to help build financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable critical goods and services that improve the lives of the poor...
, a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.
Personal
Bradley married Ernestine (néeMarried and maiden names
A married name is the family name adopted by a person upon marriage. When a person assumes the family name of her spouse, the new name replaces the maiden name....
Misslbeck) Schlant, a German-born professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of comparative literature
Comparative literature
Comparative literature is an academic field dealing with the literature of two or more different linguistic, cultural or national groups...
, in 1974. She has a daughter, Stephanie, from a previous marriage, and they have one daughter, Theresa Anne. Bradley and Schlant divorced in 2007, and he lives with former LBJ Library director Betty Sue Flowers
Betty Sue Flowers
Betty Sue Flowers is the former director of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum and an Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Texas at Austin....
.
See also
- List of NCAA Division I men's basketball career free throw scoring leaders
- List of NCAA Division I men's basketball players with 2000 points and 1000 rebounds
Further reading
- Bradley, Bill The New American Story (Random House, 2007) ISBN 978-1-40006-507-3
- Bradley, Bill The Journey from Here (Artisan, 2000) ISBN 1-57965-165-8
- Bradley, Bill Values of the Game (Artisan, 1998) ISBN 1-57965-116-X
- Bradley, Bill Time Present, Time Past: A Memoir (Diane Pub Co, 1996) ISBN 0-7881-5778-7
- Bradley, Bill Life on the Run (Bantam Books, 1977) ISBN 0-553-11055-1
- McPhee, JohnJohn McPheeJohn Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....
A Sense of Where You Are: Bill Bradley at Princeton (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965) ISBN 0-374-51485-2