A Private Journey Comes Full Circle

Sword told Bradley he would tire of the traveling performer's life and should prepare himself for politics by calling on someone interesting in every NBA city. There in the hotel dining room, Sword wrote out a list of politicians and intellectuals he could introduce. In Detroit, for instance, Bradley could "learn something about capitalism" from economists like Paul McCracken, Doug Hayes, Marina von Neuman Whitman. "On foolscap I also made a list of books for him to read, eight to 10 pages," Sword recalled.

Sword's breakfast program became Bradley's hallmark on the road. He seldom traveled without a volume of serious nonfiction and a list of people to look up.

Because of Bradley's Oxford image and political hopes, Knicks trainer Danny Whelan took to calling him "Mr. President." In the locker room it caught on. When President Lyndon B. Johnson withdrew from the 1968 presidential race in Bradley's rookie season, teammates phoned Bradley to rib him, demanding to know whether he planned to throw his hat in for the Democratic nomination.

"He'd just smile, that same smile," teammate Earl Monroe recalled. "That one eyebrow that he lifts all the time."

Phil Jackson, another teammate who went on to coach the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, said the speculation did not remain a joke. "A curious number of people started wondering, 'Is this guy really going to run for office?' " he said.

Bradley, characteristically, neither discouraged nor encouraged the question directly. But by the time he ran for Senate, in 1978, he based his campaign on the slogan that he had taken "a different road" to politics. "I chose that road deliberately," he told writer John L. Phillips then. "Basketball was a means to this end. It gave me the time and opportunity to prepare for politics. I chose it from the outset with this kind of jump in mind."

Searching for an entry point in politics, the Missouri native began with his home state. Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton urged him to run for comptroller in 1972, and Bradley consulted a rising St. Louis alderman named Richard Gephardt. "He was really thinking about it," teammate Dave DeBusschere said. "He wanted it."

His first public opinion poll did not look promising. "He had done a survey to find out what his name recognition was, and he found out there was a difference between Missouri and New Jersey," Phil Jackson said. A lot of Missourians confused Bradley with his football namesake, who played for St. Louis. DeBusschere teased Bradley about the state's fickle memory for its heroes.

The political establishment had not forgotten him, but part of it wanted to. After Bradley passed up the treasurer's race on April 25, he sounded out prospects for the newly created 10th District congressional seat. Tom Hagan, his father's deputy at the bank, arranged meetings with local Democratic stalwarts in Hagan's kitchen.

"He ran into that kind of attitude that you're shooting too high, you need to pay your dues at the local level," said John Anderson, a county judge who received one such summons. Bob Freese, then and now a political sponsor, said local officeholders "wanted him to start at the bottom like the rest of the good ol' boys. They weren't in any mood to coronate him as the next congressman, governor, senator, just because his name was Bill Bradley."

Bradley did not even manage to land a slot as delegate to the 1972 Democratic convention. Oscar "Bud" Kasten, punishing Bradley for his Aunt Elizabeth Partney's attempt to unseat Kasten as local assessor, turned fellow members of the Democratic machine against a young man "trying to jump in," according to Anderson.

A Surprise Wedding