so now the people realize, the house of david and the monarchs are good teams. look what they did to our local team. then they would turn around and book a came, the monarchs against the house of david and get three dates out of the same city. they did this all over the country. barnstorming was -- it was intelligent move from the money side. the teams who barnstormed the best survived the longest. >> if we don't have any additional questions, phil will additional questions, phil will be

captioning performed by vitac here's a great read to add to your summer reading list. "sundays at 8:00, account" a co of stories. >> i always knew there was a risk in the lifestyle and i decided to take it because whether it's an illusion or not, i don't think it is. it helped my concentration. it stopped me being bored and other people being boring to come extent. it made me want to prolong the conversation, to enhance the moment. if i was asked would i do it again, the answer is probably yes. i'd have quit earlier possibly hoping to get away with the whole thing. easy for me to say, of course, not very nice for my children to

hear. sounds irresponsible. if i say, yeah, i'd do that again to you but the truth is it would be hypocritical to say i'd never touch the stuff if i knew. because i did know. everyone knows. >> soviet union and soviet system in eastern europe contained the seeds of its own destruction. many of the problems we saw at the end end at the very beginning. i spoke already about attempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential disdense everywhere. if you tell all artists to paint the same way and one says i want to paint another way, you've made him into a disdent. >> if you want to subsidize housing and the populace agrees, then put it on the balance sheet. and make it clear and make it

evident and make everybody aware of how much it's costing. but when you deliver it through these third party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac, when you deliver through the public company of private shareholders and executives to extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of subsidizing home ownership. >> christopher hitchens, gretchen morgenson are a few of the engaging stories. now available at your favorite book seller. now, the history of racial equality in professional sports. former basketball player bill russell and former football player jim brown talk about their struggles. they also discussed the role of african-americans in college and professional sports today. this panel from the lyndon

johnson presidential library's civil rights summit is about an hour. >> good afternoon. my name is mike cramer. i'm the director of the texas program in sports and media here at the university of texas. we are pleased to partner again with the lbj library and museum. this is probably about our fifth event that we have partnered, at least on a piece of a program with them. today's conversation is part of our series on sports and society that was founded by one of the distinguished alums, cathy mcgar what we're pleased to partner with on many occasions. we also have an interesting timing of this today. yesterday, one of our participants, dr. harry edwards, formallyintroduce in a moment, we formally announced that we have established a permanent

lecture at the university of texas called the dr. harry edwards lecture on sports in society. [ applause ] and so, we couldn't possibly find a better person in the history of sports and civil rights than dr. harry edwards. he was gracious enough to lend his name to that lecture. we expect we will have several presentations under that name in the coming years. today is -- we have a conversation that's going to occur on the area of sports and civil rights. i've been a part of many panels and many presentations over the years. normally, you try and find the best panelists and the best people to make that presentation. rarely do you have the people, the top people who are presenting.

in other words, if you had to pick one, two and three, rarely do you get one, two and three. today we are fortunate that we have probably the three most important people in the civil rights sports and society and sports and civil rights movement in the last 50 years. we are ecstatic, we're pleased, we're proud that we can present them and have a conversation with them with you today. let me say that again. we have here probably the top three people in this whole area in the last 50 years. [ applause ] so let me get on with the program. it's them you are here to see. i'd like to introduce to you dr. harry edwards, mr. bill russell, mr. jim brown. [ applause ]

take it away, harry. >> thank you very much. it's a real pleasure to be here with two men that i have known for about the last 45 or 50 years. if you hear a touch of respect and admiration and affection in my voice during the course of this conversation, you have me correctly. i want to begin by stating that there have been four athletes over the last half of the 20th century who have been utterly transformative. the first, of course, is the immortal jackie robinson.

[ applause ] the second is the indomitable mr. bill russell. [ applause ] the third is the incomparable mr. jim brown. [ applause ] and the fourth is the absolutely unconquerable, miss billie jean king. [ applause ] i want to focus on the struggle at the interface of race, sport and society. i went back and read jim and bill's first two books. jim brown's "off my chest and out of bounds" and bill russell's "goal for glory and second win." i think that those are four books that should be required reading for all athletes

entering college and professional sports today because they say so much about where we have come from and the sacrifices that were made in order for them to be where they are today. the things that stuck with me about those books and reading them was, first, how well the philosophies, the perspectives, the ethical arguments and so forth of jim and bill have stood up over the last 50 years. the second thing is that they were superstar athletes when they stood up. they were superstar athletes when they stood up. the third thing that struck me was they never were willing to exchange white racism for black orthodoxy. they were always about the people and their argument was

that i, am a man, am part of the people and i insist on being respected for such. throughout their books. and then the fourth thing that really blew me away and that i find amazing to this day is how young they were. we are talking about 22, 23, 24 years old. what we call today a young adults. a way of consigning an entire generation of people to sandbox citizenship. but they were speaking out at 24 years old when this happened. so i would like, first of all, to go back to that time, and i'm going to exercise my prerogatives as the only 72-year-old up here and call you young men by your first names. and ask about what took you to that place. how did you end up at that place? why don't we start, jim, with you in terms of this? how do you end up in that place at 23, 24 years old? >> well, doc, i was very

fortunate to have a great mother. no father. went to high school with a great coach. greatest man i ever met in my life, ed walsh. a great mentor, kenny malloy, and they were impeccable from the standpoint of advocating education, self-determination. and i had an example of people that were really good. and there was tremendous discrimination in this country at the time. it was told to me that i could be loved and popular if i would bow down and do a little dance. i don't know if you all knows what that means. but i said, i don't really dance. [ laughter ] i just prefer to be a man. an american citizen. and i pay my taxes. i want my rights. so freedom, equality and justice

is what i pursued and i prusued it at all cost because nothing else would substitute for that. no trophy, no form of popularity. because i was helped as a young man, i knew that my life's work would be to help others. so that's what you have here. [ applause ] >> bill, what took you down that path that you took? i was reading "going for glory" and you stated, i have never been one to pursue being liked. from day one, i was about being respected. what took you down that path at 23, 24 years old? >> well, i guess it started when i was born. my mother and father, the first thing i knew about life was my mother and father loved me. and my mother -- i was born in

the segregated south in the '30s in louisiana. >> louisiana, uh-huh. >> and my mother -- first conversation, she said to me, there's nobody on this planet any better than you. also, there's nobody on this planet that you are better than them. and so, i grew up with confidence that i was okay. and my mother and father always treated each other with respect. and so, what i went out into the world, that's the way i thought it was supposed to be. >> okay. and did everything you could to change it to make that way when

it wasn't. >> huh? >> did everything to make it that way when it wasn't. >> well, my mother told me what i was young, she says to me one day, you can play in the front yard for the first time. she had kept me in the backyard all the time. she said, the reason i want you to play in the front yard is people will walk by and they will say things to you, good or bad, but it has nothing to do with you. it has to do with them and their perspective. and so, you play and have fun. don't worry about that. >> okay. >> and so, when i grew up, i encountered things. i knew i was okay.

and so, but moving ahead a few years ago i met nelson mandela. we had a brief conversation. and i asked him how he could be such a good person of all the things that he had encountered. and he said, if i had reacted the way they predicted that i would act, then they were right. but -- he said, i am a mandela and that's where i get my philosophy from, is that the opposite of love is not hate.

the opposite of love is and so, the only way that humans can evolve is they have to care about each other. >> that was evident throughout a number of your chapters in your book. let me ask you -- ask you this. jim, in particular, i was looking at a book entitled "the 100 most important people in american sports" and quite fittingly billie jean king is on the cover. but there was a statement that you made early on in one of your earliest books where you stated

that you had never been -- there had never been a time when you were not conscious of the civil rights movement. you stated, i was very conscious of the civil rights movement and very active in what i called the movement for dignity, equality and justice. in fact, it superceded my interest in sports. sports gave me an opportunity to help the cause. and that is what i dedicated myself to doing. now, i know that you supported the civil rights movement. but you were ahead of the civil rights movement in terms of your focus on economic development. what led you to move beyond simple desegregation to economic development, to starting the black economic union, setting up these offices all over the country, traveling through the deep south in a bus with other professional athletes talking to small -- black small business people in georgia, alabama, tennessee? what led you to that sense that that was the direction things had to go into?

>> well, it was the understanding that people had to get off of their butts. and regardless of what the condition, use as much intelligence and labor as they could to deliver themselves. we couldn't depend on a government or corporate america or anyone else. and so, i was always a person that advocated economic development because america is a capitalist society. it's based on economics. if you don't use economics in your community, your community will never grow. the jewish community in this country and the world has proven that collectively you can be a minority and apply the right principles and emancipate yourself. so i thought that the african-american community had

to apply itself, have the greatest community, the safest communities and probably most of all understand economic development. so that was the way that i led. and i attracted the top young mbas in the country. spencer jordan was my number one guy. graduate of harvard, magna cum laude. and i got the top black athletes in the country. and i put them together. and we got a grant of over $1 million at the time. we had a fund that any young black entrepreneur could come and make that loan and get the benefit of the knowledge of our national business planning team. and so, that was the way i felt we could gain equality quicker than doing anything else. >> you know, i want people to really understand. we're talking about -- think of

a 26, 25, 26, 27-year-old athlete today that would have that kind of insight and vision. that's how far ahead you were in terms of that situation. it astounds me even now. bill, you, too, had a sense of the necessity of economic development. not only did you have your own business here, but long before globalization came into the language and lex exxon of the society, you had already set up relationships in west africa and were talking about how we needed to connect with african countries and have some mutual economic development and so forth. you also went into the south. i mean, two months after the assassination, i know you went down to mississippi. and it was a frightening time, and held integrated basketball clinics in mississippi two

months after medgar evers' death. of course, your celtic teammates said, just keep a low profile. but you went down and held those clinics. while you were down there, you talked to young people about the necessity of completing school, becoming economically viable and so forth. >> well, most of the people, as i could see, were economically deprived. i felt that as one of the places where you can purchase equality if you have what started out as a charity, you could make it a force.

i know i was in boston. and there was a great many questions about why i would go to africa. people told me, africans don't like you. well, the people that were telling me that didn't like me. [ laughter ] so i wanted to go and see for myself. okay? some guy came to me and he says, what do you know about africa? you don't know anything about them. they are not like you. you got no business doing that. so i said, you know, i have this family that are friends of mine.

they have been accused of supporting the irish revolution. the family was the kennedys. i knew all of them. in fact, i'm old enough that i remember meeting and sitting and talking with rose kennedy. and i says, well, if it's all right for them to go back where their ancestors came from, why isn't that all right for me to go back where i think my ancestors came from? and so, it was all about -- see, i never, ever considered myself as a leader or anything like that. all i did was -- one thing i wanted to make sure that i never did anything that my father would be ashamed of.

so the things i did, for example, i coached the boston celtics. i was the player coach of the boston celtics. so they said, you are the first black coach in the nba. in fact, you are the first black coach manager in baseball, football and basketball in the major leagues. what about that? and i said to them, if red had ever said to me, this is a great social experience -- experiment, i would have nothing to do with it. the only reason i would do it because i'm convinced that i'm the best person for the job. [ applause ]

so where i considered trying to do everything in my life based on merit. and i expected all of the people i surround myself with -- >> to do the same? >> jim and i have known each other since college. and he used to tell me all the time that he was a better basketball player than i was anyway. [ laughter ] >> averaged 38 points a game. >> and i said, jim, no. [ laughter ] in fact i said to him one time, i says, you know, i think you are one of the greatest

athletes, if not the greatest athlete, of the 20th century. but leave basketball alone. [ laughter ] you see, jim saw and i supportsupported some of the -- if you don't have any wherewithal to exercise influence, then you will never succeed. in exercising influence. and i tried to live a life that would exercise influence. i personally am not interested in that.

i'm just interested in -- i raise my kids. and i always let them know that i loved them. i think one of the key things about raising kids. my daughter -- i have to fight off her telling me what to do now. she graduated from harvard law school. the minute she gets a degree from harvard, she knows everything. [ laughter ] and so, i just try to see where things are needed, recognize that things are needed and try to put myself in a place where i can make a difference.

>> let's jump to the present. where did the train leave the track? i mean, where are the bill russells? where are the jim browns? i know we don't expect people to do the same way -- do things the same way that they were done in the '60s in the same sense that bill, you and jim didn't do things the same way that jackie robinson did or that jesse owens or joe lewis did. how did we come to a place where we have the level of uninvolvement, apathy, almost a lack of concern about the broader issues that you speak of now? >> you mentioned jackie robinson. i met him a couple times. when he died, i got a call from rachel robinson. she said that she wanted me to

be a pallbearer at his funeral. and i said, at my age, that's an overwhelming honor. why me? she said, you were one of jackie's favorite athletes. and i took that to say jackie had done a tremendous thing for us. he was the first black to play baseball, but he was never a pushover. and he took us to a place that opening up this whole world for us. but i was not going to re-visit that place. i wanted to take it to the next step. >> which you most certainly did.

>> and so, when red asked me -- he said he's retiring. i went back to my coach. he says, i'm retiring. i got to find a coach to replace me. he said, first, do you want the job? i said, hell no. [ laughter ] i said, i watch what you go through. i don't want no part of that. so we agreed, both made out a list of ten guys that we would approve of. he says, nobody can get the job unless you approve of it. so i made a list of ten and he made a list of ten. there were no matches. and so he said, what do you want to do? i said, i don't know.

he says, okay, well -- he decided however on this one coach.bxxeiim and he said, this is who i'm going to hire. so i said, red, if you hire him, i am going to retire with you. [ laughter ] i don't even want to be in the same room with that person. i cleaned it up. i said person. and he said, why? i says, no. i will not be on the team with him. he said, what do you want to do? i said, i tell you what. i will take the job as a player coach. if it doesn't work, if you ask me to, i will quit or you can fire me. it doesn't make any difference. and i will give whoever you replace me with 100% cooperation. because i didn't want to -- i had grown to love that organization.

i wasn't going to do anything to harm it. >> mess it up, yeah. >> i did a pretty good job. >> i think you did. 11 nba championships. >> no, what i'm talking about was, i was player coach with no assistants. i didn't have any assistants. >> nobody could work with you. [ laughter ] i mean -- i heard that story. >> i can be difficult. >> i know. i know. >> but, you know, i had a song written for me. he talked about my father. and the key line to the song was, i am my father's son.

and he taught me how to be a man by being one. and so, i think that i can have friendships with guys that politically we're completely opposed. but since i demand respect, i was also given respect. so the things i did, i tried to do for the right reasons. never to prove anything to someone i don't know. jim is a life-long friend. probably after my father, the best friend i've ever had.

and the whole thing was based on mutual respect. you know what's odd about it to me is, jim and i have known each other since college. that's in the 1950s. and i do not remember -- he says he doesn't remember -- when we met. >> momentous time there. momentous moment. yeah. >> but the foundation is, of the whole thing is, we live in america, and the better america is for everybody here, the better america will be. >> for everybody. [ applause ] >> let me -- go ahead, jim. >> i'd like to emphasize what

you said, bill, because this is a very diverse audience and sometimes i'm misunderstood. i think sometimes you're misunderstood. when you talk about jackie robinson, i knew jackie very well. had a lot of admiration for him. but i always talked about the man that truly integrated baseball was not jackie. it was branch rickie. jackie called him mr. rickie. and he stepped out from the power structure and he decided that baseball should be integra integrated. one reason might be because it's the right thing to do. the other reason might be the box office, the whole black audience out there that went to baseball games. and he could have chosen satchel page or josh gibson because they were great, great baseball players. but he chose jackie because he knew jackie had the ability to

play great baseball, yet play the political role that he had to play, even though it was killing him. and so, i say to you that i had a lot of respect for branch rickie and people like him. so if i digress from there, i go to slavery and the underground railroad. you must take notice of these things to be able to live in america properly, i feel. the underground railroad represented harriet tubman. harriet tubman was given tremendous praise for being that pioneer who basically lived her life to free the slaves. what is also overlooked is that those free houses that those people put up for the slaves to stay at and to hide them and to get them up to the north and get them to canada were regular

people, regular people. nothing special. but the commonality was that they were good human beings. when we talk, the three of us, and i want to emphasize this. we always talk about the category of good human beings before we talk about white, black, whatever. and that becomes important in being a man because if i have a charity in my soul or the wisdom to recognize goodness in people, then i'm a man, a man of god, a man of trying to do the right thing. therefore, nothing you can do or say to me will change my attitude about my manhood. over the years, the biggest problem that we have had in this country is whenever you stand up for the right thing, even though it's for the overall populous, people take the attitude that

you are a racist or they call it an opposite racist. so i wanted to make that point, because when you say, where are we today, well, the one guy that i depend on most, young man that just won the super bowl and who is a tremendous human being and has gotten through troubled times and who understands what we are doing is ray lewis. ray, i think, can be the leader of a lot of these young individuals who need that leadership, who want to learn what to do and how to participate in making tremendous change within this country. i just thought i would interject that. >> there is no question that every generation has to develop its own leadership. i think that we can -- people of our generation can do the analysis and tell them about

what happened in the past and where we think they are now, but ultimately, it's this generation that's going to have to take the leadership and responsibility. let me ask, i know that -- because we are running short here. let me ask this. i know that progress many times is a lot like the concept of profit. it really comes down to who is keeping the books. and so, in looking at where we are, how much progress have we actually made in sports given the fact that we are down to 8% african-americans in baseball, from 21% in 1973, the heavyweight division of boxing is just about wiped out. i remember a time and you do, too, when there was ali and norton and george foreman and

patterson and young and cleveland williams and larry holmes couldn't break into the lineup. he was just a sparring partner. today, you couldn't find two people in 100 in an african-american community who could tell if you there was a black heavyweight contender around now. when you look at the fact that the nba is one-quarter foreign born, we are losing spots there. how much progress have we actually made? where are we in terms of that concept? >> harry, i'm going to jump in there because i think a simple way i can say that jimmy carter, president carter, experience yesterday was almost everything that you need to know about progress, about heart, about honesty and about the future. he is on top of it in every way. so i would say to all of

america, if you can get a tape of the jimmy carter presentation of yesterday, that that affair is unbelievable. [ applause ] >> there's a movement going on now about unionizing college athletes. i'll be very interested in both of your opinions in terms of this unionization effort. it's just starting. i think people are really looking around for an opinion, a perspective on it that they can understand and wrap their minds around. jim? bill? >> bill, you want to take this? >> for me, i have this phrase that i use. all great fortunes are amassed with either cheap or slave labor.

and so, the ncaa is one group everybody is focusing on. they have this money machine. and to keep it this way, the labor force has to be free or very low wages. that's why you look at a lot of the great companies in this country, and they pay their labor -- they can't even afford to go to the place where they work. i know when i was a rookie 100

years ago, the average salary in the nba was $5,000. that's not even meal money now. in the middle '60s, we struck the all-star game, the 20 top players in the league got together and struck an all-star game to form the union. the owners said, no way. we are not going to do that. so we said, okay. there will be no all-star game. abc television said that if you want us to televise basketball, you can't even get your players on the floor. they said, let's talk to them.

so they said, we don't want to lose face. so what we'll do is if you guys will play the all-star game, at the end of the year, we will recognize the union. so the vote 11-9 to play. and we played the all-star game. so at the end of the year we went in to talk to the commissioner. he said, i recognize the players association. but we do not have anything to talk about. i'm not going to talk to you about anything. so our lawyer said, okay, i will see you in september. that's the beginning of the next season. the commissioner said, the playoffs start next week. he said, oh, no. we're not going to play the playoffs. you see, because, what we knew

then was our contract was for the regular season games only, not preseason, all-stars or playoffs. so we said, well, we'll see you next september. the playoffs is where everybody got well. you almost doubled the price of tickets and you sold out every game. they saw that revenue going out the window. so they said, okay, we will talk to you. what do you want to talk about? so we had a list of things that we had to change. one of the things that we knew was baseball was the only sport that had antitrust exemption. the rest of us had -- the rest of sports had to go through antitrust laws. so all the grievance with the

nba now are based on collective >> will that work -- jim, will that work at college? is that a model for college? is that something that these young athletes should be looking at? >> i'm going to simplify it. i'm totally against a union in college. i don't like the ncaa. i think it's a greedy organization, dictatorial organization, an organization that's totally unfair to the players. i mean, players can't ep get enough money to bring their parents to a game. on the other hand, i think that we have all gotten away from the value of education. [ applause ] so i'm an advocate of, let's go back to four years of college. [ applause ] let's graduate and then let's choose to play basketball,

football, whatever or not. as you know, there's a very low percentage of individuals that make the professional teams. but everybody can get that scholarship can get a college education. so we have to re-emphasize education and the value of it because that's going to really be the ingredient that's going to make the change. it's not going to be a struggle between the ncaa and the union and all that. because that's strictly money. >> yeah. >> as we know with these players today that we have, millionaires, over two-thirds of them go bankrupt within three years. so it can't be the money. so we put the value back on education and making that dedication to your college and let the ncaa support that with giving the players a right

amount of money so they can live a decent life while they get a great education. [ applause ] >> we are running short here. i do want to ask you about one other thing. how close are we in athletics in this country to really measuring people, evaluating people based upon a content of their character and the caliber of their competence as opposed to what they are and who they are? we have a situation now where we have active athletes coming out saying, i'm gay. jason collins, most certainly mike sams. britney graneir. there's another -- a young man who played a championship game, the first active division i

athlete to come out and say, i'm gay. how close are we to putting this madness behind us about evaluating people based upon these -- all of these secondary inconsequential things as opposed to the content of their character and the caliber of their confidence? how close are we to accepting this in the nfl or -- >> are you looking at me, william? do you want that one? >> what i will say about it is, the first athlete you heard about coming out as gay, someone asked me, how would you feel about playing with a gay player? and i had one question. can he play? [ applause ] >> the caliber of his competence? >> right. that's all.

>> jim -- >> i can't add to that. i cannot add to that. >> okay. >> we'll leave it alone. >> jim was a professional in the most macho of all american sports. it seems to me -- it may not be a good correlation but a lot of questions they asked about gay athletes were essentially the same questions they used to ask about us, the black athletes. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> you know? >> isn't it a simple situation? we have laws in this country. we try to abide by laws. we have different denominations. we have different races, et cetera, gender. and if you are a law abiding citizen and trying to do the

right thing, then how can anyone else judge you? i mean, i think it's that simple. i can't get into the religious aspect of it to the sexual aspect of it that i look for the as you said earlier, the character of a person. and that's good enough for me because i have my own things i got to deed with. to the end hed typically at this time, you know, is when the moderator will ask how do we are getti inting pretty clos the end here and typically at this time, it's when the moderator will ask how do you want to be remembered and one thing or another, but i have researched that and i've looked at 31 people who said how they want ed to be remembered and then when i actually read the follow up, not one was remembered the way b they said they wanted to be remembered, so we won't waste our time with

that bit of morbid wishful think, but i do have a couple of last questions for you. we've gotten, we've gotten pretty serious here and i think that this wonderful audience deserves a little chocolate shake with their broccoli, so let me ask first, bill, you. question i've been wanting to ask you for the last 45 years, just between you and me. i mean, 11 nba championships. in 13 seasons. i mean, i looked at this thing where lebron james came out and said when he put his mt. rushmore players up, he left you off and i didn't have any problem with that because it's really not mt. rushmore, it's russell. he can put anybody he wants to up there. but i do have a question.

11 championships in 13 years. 13 seasons. it's mind boggling. the question i've had for you for the last 45 years is what happened with them other two? >> well -- >> can i do one thing? 12 times and one year, there was a sprained ankle, i wasn't able to play and we lost. but i rarely bring that up. i'll tell you why. it's a team game and my team lost. because it's been -- also go the

other side and say my team won, so, i give them credit for beating us. >> okay, so them last two, you just lost. >> yeah. >> okay, all right. >> it's hard to talk about yourself, but i can talk about you. you know, the 11 championships were proceeded by two college championships. two of them. the common denominator in a team sport was you. team sport means that you are a team. everyone has a responsibility and you win together. not michael jordan being acrobatic or any of lebron james being a freak of nature, but bill, your contribution -- >> made the difference. >> to the success of the team.

it is your contribution. we don't have to feel you're the greatest and all that. we know you're the greatest contributor and the objective of a team is to win. >> that should be a picture of bill russell next to the word winning. winner, in the dictionary. >> absolutely. that's my man. >> in the two minutes -- >> there's never been a greater contributor in any sport. >> let me ask, i got a question -- >> that's a friend of mine. >> i know. >> what bill is is essentially telling you, you don't have to pay him that money. let me, i have a question here. jim, you are a actor, you produced a number of successful musical groups. of course, you understand the politics of the entertainment industry and how much mileage you can get out of the form of

such as football and so forth, so i have a question for you. just in the end here. i really value your judgment on this. president o obama leading up to his first campaign famously went to the university of north carolina and played basketball. they had it all over the tv with the championship basketball team. he leading up to his second election, he famously channelled al green's i'm so in love with you. i mean, it became the number one phone ringer across the country after that. i have a question you. do you think you will have project projected the same cachet charisma and cool say he had been into bowling and had channelled glenn campbell's