While waiting in line for more than hour, junior forward Zach Bohannon decided to strike up a conversation with outgoing Wisconsin senator Herb Kohl. They talked for a short time about Wisconsin basketball, about recent Milwaukee Bucks draft pick and former Badger Jon Leuer and even a little politics.
Bohannon and Kohl were toward the end of a line of more than 75 people all waiting to meet the President of the U.S.
The day was Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012, and the most powerful man in the world was in town. President Obama was slated to speak on Bascom Hill to energize UW’s campus in the midst of his reelection effort.
The President would go on to speak to 30,000 people that afternoon, but minutes before gracing the stage, he met the Badgers. Five years later, with President Obama now out of office, the time, while brief, spent with the president remains one of the highlights of many players’ UW tenures.
However, the meeting almost didn’t happen.
Early that Thursday morning, the Badgers still didn’t have private passes to meet the president. They had finished their morning lift and were preparing for the afternoon’s conditioning session.
“I think that day we were running the hill,” George Marshall, a freshman guard on the team, said. “That would have been pretty tough.”
The notorious hill at Elver Park was penciled in on the team’s schedule that afternoon. A meeting with the president seemed unlikely.
In the weeks leading up to Obama’s visit, junior forward Zach Bohannon made it clear that meeting the president was a top priority.
In the days prior, Bohannon had taken to Twitter to try and connect with any and everyone who maybe, just maybe, could contact Obama.
Bohannon tweeted at people in the sports media who might have had a tie to the president. He sought out various political figures. He even reached out to Craig Robinson, the then-head basketball coach at Oregon State University and brother of Michelle Obama, to see if he could help out.
All in all, Bohannon estimates he sent out more than 100 tweets to various people, hoping he and his teammates could meet the president that afternoon.
“I kept telling the team, ‘we’re gonna make this happen, some way or another. I don’t know how it’s gonna work, but I promise you we’re gonna meet the president,’” Bohannon said. “And they all kind of laughed at me, thinking it was me being me.”
While Bohannon struggled to find a connection that could potentially get them access, Marshall, weeks into his career at UW, realized he knew someone who could potentially make Bohannon’s promise come to fruition.
Marshall, a Chicago native, was once coached by one of Obama’s closest friends, Marty Nesbitt. Nesbitt’s son, Alex, was also on the team. That morning Marshall called Marty, the campaign treasurer of President Obama’s campaign in 2008, and relayed his team’s request.
Initially the White House only offered Marshall five passes, so the freshman guard promptly called Bohannon.
“I was like, ‘first off me and you are going, but see if we can get more tickets than that,’” Bohannon recalled. “‘I don’t care if the coaches go, we are gonna get 15 tickets for our whole team or no one’s going.’”
Marshall relayed the message to the White House representative and minutes later, Bohannon’s hard-line request paid off. The entire team had VIP passes.
Just after noon, the Badgers would be ushered from holding room to holding room. Ben Brust, a junior guard on the team, recalls the intense security in and around the building. Bohannon remembers that an escort took them to an entrance at the side of the hall. They were giddy anticipating his arrival, hoping for the chance to merely ask President Obama if he wanted to play some pickup basketball.
“At this time everyone was pretty giddy,” Bohannon said. “And then he finally walked in.”
The president started shaking the hands of the other people in the room. The Badgers were at the very back of the VIP line. But the group of 15 college students, ranging from six-feet to seven-feet tall, wearing matching red Wisconsin sweatshirts, jumped out to the president.
After a few introductions and photographs with other VIP’s, the president briefly stopped shaking hands. He turned around and saw the Badgers. He let out a big smile, called for their attention and imitated his own left-handed jump shot.
“At that point, we were literally bouncing off the wall like we just had a big dunk in a game,” Bohannon said. “We were shoving each other, saying, ‘there’s no way the president just did that.’”
As the president continued to make his way down the line, Bohannon made sure he would be the first Badger to introduce himself. He was the initial messenger after all, tasked with asking the president the question on his teammate’s minds: Would he one day return and play basketball with them?
President Obama laughed at Bohannon’s request, but promised to one day return after the election was over. He admitted he was grizzled and didn’t shoot much anymore. He asked the team whom he should pass to. Senior guard Ryan Evans shot his hand up.
“You should pass it to me,” he said.
Dan Fahey spoke up next.
“You could pass to me. I’m a lefty like you,” the junior guard said.
The president took a few pictures with the Badgers. Bohannon estimates he spent about five minutes talking with the team as well. Moments he later, he would speak to 30,000 enthused people on Bascom Hill.
Only one member of that team still walks Bascom Hill and still plays at the Kohl Center. Zak Showalter was a little less than six weeks into his first year at UW when he met the president.
“Kind of like one of the first things I really did in college was get to meet President Obama,” Showalter said. “Not many kids can say that. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity. You don’t get to meet many Presidents of the United States.”
Bohannon though has actually met multiple presidents, including President George W. Bush at the Final Four the very next year.
“Meeting two presidents is a fleeting moment,” Bohannon said. “It’s an awesome experience, awesome opportunity. But the lasting experiences that I build around those opportunities is more important.”
To this day, Bohannon still tells the stories of meeting both President Obama and President Bush not only to peers, but also at job interviews. He one day hopes to go into politics and said he has learned a lot from both meetings about how to connect with prospective voters.
Marshall, who later transferred from UW to South Dakota State University, views it as one of the highlights of his experience in Madison.
Brust isn’t as braggadocios about meeting President Obama.
“I try not to be that guy,” he said. “I’ll take the Final Four and Michigan buzzer beater over him.”
Coming back to Madison to play pickup with the Badgers was a promise the president did not keep.
But the offer did help serve as the president’s introductory remarks that afternoon on Bascom Hill.
“He reiterated his commitment,” Bohannon recalled. “Saying, ‘the basketball team invited me to play. I said I’m getting kinda old, but that after the election I’ll be draining down threes on them.’”
Five years later, with Obama now out of office, maybe one day he’ll return to Madison to fulfill his promise. But even if he doesn’t, that meeting will still go down as one of the highlights for the 2012 Badgers.
“That was four or five years ago for me, so I’ve come a long way,” Showalter said. “I don’t have as many gray hairs as he might have now.”
“We’ve done a lot of cool things. I’ve met a lot of cool people going to Final Fours and stuff, but that’s definitely top five.”
