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 NBA titles in 1970 and 1973. Retiring in 1977, he ran for a seat in the United States Senatethe 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 seven non-fiction books, most recently We Can All Do Better, 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. Bradley is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One.[1] He also serves on that group's advisory board.
Bradley was born on July 28, 1943, in Crystal City, Missouri, the only child of Warren (June 22, 1901 – October 1, 1994),[5] who despite leaving high school after a year had become a bank president, and Susan "Susie" Crowe (June 12, 1909 – November 30, 1995),[5] a teacher and former high school basketball player.[6][7][8][9] 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.[8] An active Boy Scout, he became an Eagle Scout and member of the Order of the Arrow.[10]
Bradley must surely be the only great basketball player who wintered regularly in Palm Beach until he was thirteen years old.
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-American, and was elected to the Missouri Association of Student Councils.[6] He received 75 college scholarship offers, although he applied to only five schools[9][11][10] and only scored a 485 out of 800 on the Verbal portion of the SAT,[12] 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.[13]
Bradley's basketball ability benefited from his height—5 feet 9 inches (1.75 m) in the seventh grade, 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) in the eighth grade,[10] and his adult size of 6 feet 5 inches (1.96 m) by the age of 15[6]—and unusually wide peripheral vision,[6] which he worked to improve by focusing on faraway objects while walking.[14][15] During his high school years, Bradley maintained a rigorous practice schedule, a habit he carried through college.[16] 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."[6]
Basketball
College career
Bradley was considered to be the top high school basketball player in the country. He initially chose to attend Duke in the fall of 1961.[17] 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.[18][10] He had been awarded a scholarship at Duke, but not at Princeton; the Ivy League does not allow its members to award athletic scholarships,[17][18] and he was disqualified from receiving financial aid because of his family's wealth.[6]: 13
Bradley practicing at Princeton in 1964
Bradley wore #42 in honor of childhood hero Dick Kazmaier, who had won the Heisman Trophy at Princeton.[6]: 73 He was so superior to the rest of the freshman team that coach Eddie Donovan chose lineups by saying "You, you, you, you, and Bradley".[19] Bradley averaged more than 30 points per game for the freshman team,[20] at one point making 57 consecutive free throws,[21] 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.[22]
In his sophomore year Bradley scored 40 points in an 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.[21] The AP and United Press International polls both put Bradley on the second team, establishing him as the top sophomore player in the country;[23] Bradley also hit .316 as a first baseman for the baseball team.[24] 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.[25] At the Olympic basketball trials in April 1964, Bradley played guard instead of his usual forward position but was still a top performer.[26][10] 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.[6]
As a senior and team captain[27] in the 1964–1965 season, Bradley became a household name.[24] Only the third tallest on his team,[6] but called "easily the No. 1 player in college basketball today",[10] "the best amateur basketball player in the United States", and "The White Oscar Robertson",[6] he scored 41 points before fouling out of the game in an 80–78 loss to Michigan[24] and their star player Cazzie Russell in the 1964 ECAC Holiday Basketball semi-final at Madison Square Garden, then led Princeton to the NCAA Final Four[28] after defeating heavy favorite Providence and Jimmy Walker by 40 points.[24] The team then lost to Michigan 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.[29] 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,[30] and the second Princeton student to win the award, after runnerBill Bonthron in 1934.[30]
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). Bradley 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,[31] 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[6]: 46 or, as during the Wichita State game, his teammates forced Bradley to shoot by returning passes to him.[24] 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."[6]: 46
The coach described Bradley as "not the most physical player. Others can run faster and jump higher. The difference ... is self-discipline."[6] Afraid that he was not qualified for Princeton, Bradley recalled that after almost failing freshman French and biology, he "just lived in the library".[19] Bradley 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,[10] 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.[6] Bradley took losses personally, outraged when other freshman players laughed and joked after a loss. His only criticism of childhood hero Wilt Chamberlain was that Chamberlain lacked a killer instinct.[19]
Bradley dropped out of Oxford in April 1967, two months before graduation, to enter the Air Force Reserves. (The following year, Oxford allowed Bradley to take "special exams", enabling him to graduate.) He served six months on active duty as an officer, though the requirement was four years' service. (On March 6, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson declared that he would issue an executive order that Selective Service deferments for post-graduate study would henceforth be limited to the medical and dental fields.[39])
Bradley joined the New York Knicks in December 1967, having missed the preseason and several weeks of the 1967–1968 season. He was placed in the backcourt, although he had spent his high school and college careers as a forward. Neither he nor the team did well, and in the following season, he was returned to the forward slot.[40][41] Then, in his third season, the Knicks won their first NBA championship, followed by the second in the 1972–73 season, when he made the only All-Star Game appearance of his career.[42] Over 742 NBA games – all with the Knicks – Bradley scored a total of 9,217 points, an average of 12.4 points per game, and averaged 3.4 assists per game. His best season scoring average was 16.1 points per game in the 1972–73 season, during which he also averaged a career-best 4.5 assists per game.[42] As in college Bradley was an aggressive player, pushing and shoving to intimidate and distract opponents.[19][43]
Bradley had an intense rivalry with Jack Marin, who played chiefly with the Baltimore Bullets, to the point of Bradley's "shrieking incoherently" at Marin on one occasion, and their exchanging slaps on others. Hall of Fame Knick's coach Red Holzman did not consider the physical aspect too serious, describing their rivalry as "two intense players in a matchup of skills and the will to win."[44][43]
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.[8] 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. Bradley wrote that he was uncomfortable using his celebrity status to earn extra money endorsing products as other players did.[45]
Retiring from basketball in 1977, he was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983, along with teammate Dave DeBusschere.[46] 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.[47] He is one of only two players, along with Manu Ginóbili, to have won a EuroLeague title, an NBA championship, and an Olympic gold medal.[48]
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 Senate 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.[6]: 42 His Rhodes application stated "I can best serve mankind as a politician".[19] Bradley spent his time at Oxford focusing on European political and economic history.[8]
During his third year with the Knicks, Bradley told Robert Lipsyte that he regretted only focusing on school and basketball at Princeton; "perhaps considered a smart athlete" by society, "or an athlete with character, but still a particular kind of object instead of a particular human being".[19] In Life on the Run, Bradley wrote that he had intended to only play in the NBA for four years before signing a second contract for four more. The New York Times's review of the book stated that "it does not seem ... that there was much in the way of intellectual contact" with teammates, and speculated that after basketball "Perhaps he will turn to politics at last".[45] In 1978 Bradley 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.[34] A year after the Lipsyte conversation, Bradley gave a speech to 113 top Missouri scholar-athletes. Instead of just congratulations as they expected, the NBA starter quoted Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell in giving advice he wished he had heard in high school:[19]
Thousands of people who do not know me use my participation on a Sunday afternoon as an excuse for non-action, as a fix to help them escape their own everyday problems, and society's problems. The toll of providing that experience is beginning to register on me
"Are you being subtly programmed into being a certain kind of person with a narrow range of traditional career alternatives?" Bradley asked the audience. "If so, rebel".[19]
U.S. Senate
Drawer of Bradley's former Senate Chamber desk (Bradley's signature is visible in the upper left corner)
After four years of political campaigning for Democratic candidates around New Jersey, Bradley decided in the summer of 1977 to retire from the Knicks and run in the 1978 United States Senate election in New Jersey. He felt his time had been well-spent in "paying his dues". The seat was held by liberal Republican and four-term incumbent Clifford P. Case. Case lost the Republican primary to anti-tax conservativeJeffrey Bell, who, like Bradley, was 34 years old as the campaign season began.[8] Bradley won the election with about 56% of the vote.[49] During the campaign, Yale football player John Spagnola was Bradley's bodyguard and driver.[8]
In the Senate, Bradley acquired a reputation for being somewhat aloof and was thought of as a "policy wonk",[50] 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.[51]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.[52] He sponsored the Freedom Support Act, an exchange program between the republics of the former Soviet Union and the United States.[53]
In 1987, Bradley re-introduced legislation that would return 1.3 million acres of land in the Black Hills of South Dakota to the Sioux tribe that had been illegally seized by President Ulysses S. Grant under the threat of starvation of the tribe in 1877. The legislation proposed to keep Mount Rushmore within the US Park Service and 1.3 million acres of the Black Hills to return to jurisdiction under a Sioux National Council. The legislation died in committee.[55][56]
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.[57] 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, future governor Christine Todd Whitman, into a viable candidate, and Bradley won by only a slim margin. In 1995, he announced he would not run for re-election, publicly declaring American politics "broken".[11]
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.[58][59] Bradley was criticized for neglecting constituent services while in office.[11]
Bradley ran in the 2000 presidential primaries, 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.[60][61] 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 loopholes. 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".[62]
Bill Bradley for President campaign logo used in various materials in 1999 and 2000
On public education, Bradley proposed to make over $2 billion in block grants 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 scholarships to anyone who agreed to become a teacher after graduating; Gore offered a similar proposal.[63] 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 parents 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.[64]
Bradley's campaign initially had strong prospects due to high-profile endorsements and as his fundraising efforts gave him a deep war chest; however, it floundered due to Gore's strong Democratic establishment support. Bradley was much embarrassed by his two to one defeat in the Iowa caucus, despite spending heavily there, as the unions pledged their support for Gore. Bradley then lost the New Hampshire primary 53–47%, which had been viewed as a must-win state for his campaign to remain competitive. It also did not help that Bradley was overshadowed by Senator John McCain's far more attention-gaining insurgent campaign for the Republican nomination. McCain was also ultimately successful, but he resonated better with independent voters and stole Bradley's "thunder" on several occasions, including an upset win in New Hampshire over eventual GOP nominee George W. Bush.[76] Bradley finished a distant second during each of the primaries on Super Tuesday. On March 9, 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.[77][78]
In January 2004, Bradley and Gore both endorsed Howard Dean for president in the 2004 Democratic primaries.[85] In January 2008, Bradley announced that he was supporting Barack Obama in the 2008 Democratic primary.[86] 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.[87] He has occasionally been involved in political matters, most recently consulting the Senate Finance Committee on tax reform along with former colleague Bob Packwood.[88]
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 QuinStreet and the private company Raydiance. Bradley is a senior advisor to the private equity firm Catterton Partners.[89] 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.[90][91][92] Bradley is a co-chair for the advisory board of Issue One,[93] a non-profit whose goal is to reduce the influence of money in American politics.
Bradley created an autobiographical one-man show, Rolling Along, which was filmed before a live audience in a New York theater in 2022. The film debuted at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival and launched on streaming service Max in February 2024.[94][95]
Personal life
As a young man Bradley avoided women who wanted to date a celebrity. He wrote in Life on the Run that being famous had taught him what beautiful women experienced, "the unnaturalness of being a sex object". Future TV journalist Diane Sawyer was a serious girlfriend in college.[19]
Bradley married Ernestine (née 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.[96][97][98] Bradley and Schlant divorced in 2007. His partner since 2009 has been former LBJ Library director Betty Sue Flowers.[99]
^ abKabaservice, Geoff (January 27, 2000). "Bill Bradley's SAT Scores". Slate. Archived from the original on February 1, 2011. Retrieved February 17, 2011.
^Samuel, Ebenezer (June 18, 2006). "Daily News Sports Hall of Fame Candidates. And Introducing the Candidates ... Bill Bradley". New York Daily News. p. 10.
^At that time, freshmen were prohibited from playing varsity sports for NCAA member schools. That rule would not be repealed for basketball until the 1972–73 academic year.
^Gancedo, Javier (April 23, 2013). "An Oxford scholar turned European champion". EuroLeague.net. Retrieved September 26, 2018. He was the first player to win the Euroleague, Olympics and NBA titles – something that only Manu Ginobili has managed to achieve after him.
^"Tuesday's Election Results in the States and Makeup of 99th Congress; The Senate Contest". The New York Times. Associated Press. November 8, 1984. p. A28.
^O'Neill, James M. (August 28, 1995). "Question for Bradley at the Beach / The Retiring Senator Took His Last Annual Shore Walk. But Everyone Wanted to Know if he Would Run". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
^Mezzacappa, Dale (January 31, 2000). "Candidates Tackling Education Dilemmas They Know Voters Care About School Issues". The Philadelphia Inquirer. p. A01.
^Jones, Charisse (October 22, 1999). "Bradley plans to lift kids from poverty Proposal would tap surplus from federal budget". USA Today. p. 6A.
^Powell, Michael (March 4, 2000). "USA ISO Strong, Macho Type ...; The Dizzying Effect on Election 2000 Of New York's Political Circles". The Washington Post. p. C01.
^Allen, Mike (November 13, 1999). "At Bradley's Fund-Raising Events, the Stars Come Out; With Sports Luminaries as Headliners, Former NBA Player Nets Big Bucks". The Washington Post. p. A08.
^Fee, Kevin (September 8, 2007). "Phil Enshrined – former UND All-American Joins the Hall of Fame". Grand Forks Herald. p. C1.
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