Love Reggie - Power forward my presidential education

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The day I met the future president I was wearing the first suit my father ever gave me. A gray Hugo Boss at least a size too big, sloppy and untailored. I paired it with a nondescript beige tie and brown Kenneth Cole squared-toe lace-up shoes. I was twenty-three years old, fresh out of Duke University. I thought I looked sharp.

It was December 2005. I had been home killing time for a month in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where my parents lived. I was playing round after round of golf while waiting to see if I was going to have a professional sports career (either in NFL Europe or Arena Football, where I could get more experience before hopefully joining the Dallas Cowboys). I was also considering applying for a position at Goldman Sachs. Mostly, I was honing my short game.

My mother, Lynette Love, no fan of idleness, told me I needed a contingency plan beyond pro sports and high finance. Do something more productive with your time, she scolded as I loafed around her house.

Ive dropped ten strokes off my game! I shot back, teasing. I dont know how to be more productive than that.

My mom didnt laugh. And her point was well taken. I wasnt Tiger Woods. Or a retiree. Duly chastened, I sent my rsum to a friend, Alan Hogan, a mentor of a basketball teammate, Andre Buchner, who was close with Sean Richardson, chief of staff to Representative Patrick Kennedy, explaining I might be looking for an internship on Capitol Hill. Not long after, I received a call from Pete Rouse, then chief of staff for Senator Barack Obama. Rouse, I would come to appreciate, was a man of vast experience and abundant talent. He had been chief of staff to Senator Tom Daschle when Daschle was majority leader; around D.C., Pete was known as the 101st senator. My rsum had been forwarded to him because I was young, into sports, African-American, and Id graduated with a political science degree from Duke.

I knew about Senator Obama. He was the only African-American in the U.S. Senate at the time, and it boggled my mind that 1 percent of the United States Senate was representing 19 percent of Americas population. Id seen his rousing speech at the Democratic National Convention in 2004. And Id read his book Dreams from My Father , in which he plumbed the personal psychology of race in a way Id not seen discussed before. The parts of the book that addressed Obamas experiences as a black student at an overwhelmingly white, privileged private high school felt as if they had been written just for me.

My family was solidly middle class. Both of my parents went to college at North Carolina Central University, where they met, and at their encouragement Id attended a private high school that was predominantly well off and Caucasian. So my basketball teammates in the Amateur Athletic League (AAU) constantly gave me grief as the guy who spent more time with whites than blacks on and off the court.

All of my African-American friends who went to public schools saw me as soft. Uncool. Rather than the Fresh Prince, I was the Carlton. And while my prep school friends lived in giant houses and drove luxury cars, my family could barely afford tuitionwe were on tuition assistance, and even that was a struggleand we lived on the other side of town. I felt caught between two worlds: I came from one side, and I wasnt genuinely invited into the other. I was part of both worlds, but didnt fit either mold. After reading Dreams , I realized I wasnt the only person of color who felt that way, whod been struggling with identity, unsure of where he fit.

On the phone, I told Rouse that Senator Obamas book had spoken to me.

What do you want to do? he asked.

Ill do anything, I replied.

He invited me to D.C.

* * *

Id been to Washington in May 2001, after Duke won the NCAA Championship. Wed been covered in the media extensively, as every NCAA Championship basketball team has been before and since. Back on campus we were minor celebrities, and now we were in the nations capital to, among other things, meet the President. Needless to say, it was not your usual introduction to Washington, and my mind was in a thousand places at once.

Our team visited the Pentagon and toured the White House. I remember it was a hot and humid day as we all stood in the Rose Garden sweating in our suits. I was the only one whod brought a handkerchief, and I passed it around to the guys while we waited for President Bush to show up to welcome us to the White House.

Bush eventually came out, posed, and was very polite. He congratulated us, and that was that. I never thought for a second that I was standing in the place of my future employment. What I remembered most about D.C., if Im honest, was a very brief glimpse of the Oval Office, the unpleasant temperature, and how disgusting my handkerchief was after several teammates used it to mop their brows.

When I arrived on a cold winter day in 2005 for the interview with the senators office, however, it was a different story. I was mesmerized by the federal city. Everything felt so seductively foreign to me. The architecture. The pace. Driving into town felt like being a toddler walking into a toy store. Or buying a new gadget and pushing all the buttons at once. I was overwhelmed, breathless with excitement. Playing hoops for sold-out crowds at Cameron Indoor Stadium or in front of a hundred thousand hand-chopping Florida State University Seminole fans should have prepared me, but the grandness of the city was something completely different.

Which is probably why I crashed the car.

Id borrowed my fathers Volvo S80 to make the drive. Id never driven in the city before. And though it was a minor fender-bender, a Jeep coming into my lane and hitting the side of my car, I tried not to think of it as a bad omen. (Or of what I was going to tell my dad.)

Senator Obama couldnt meet with me the first day, so I ended up staying overnight with a friend. The next day, I took the Metro over to the Capitol to meet with David Katz, then a personal assistant to the senator. Stepping into the Hart Senate Office Building only reinforced the exhilaration I was already feeling. The place was massive, chock-full of business-attired people rushing past, looking like they were consumed with purpose. There were metal detectors and security guards and men and women in suits and shiny shoes talking in eager, agitated voices into their phones, or to each other. The very air itself seemed heavy with ambition, and as I inhaled it, I realized right then I wanted to be a part of the mix.

I sat outside the cloakroom on a hard wooden bench, too stupid to be nervous, just giddily eager, like a dog in cold weather. The senator emerged with Katz, who pointed at me. I stood up just as he approached.

Hey, Reggie, Obama said, extending his hand. Thanks for taking the time.

We shook hello, his demeanor formal, but friendly. He asked what Id been doing with my life.

Playing football, I said, adding quickly, I read your book. It was inspiring, thoughtful.