In this most recent revelation about Mitt Romney, some here have wanted to downplay it lest skeletons in President Obama's closet might also discredit him. In any case the kerfuffle stirred me to look into Obama's high school days. So far, the only overlap is that both Romney and Obama attended expensive, exclusive private schools which educated many later leaders. The contrasts though are striking.
The New York Times
On Campus, Obama and Memories
By JACKIE CALMES
Published: January 2, 2009
HONOLULU — Less than three weeks before he becomes the nation’s first black president, Barack Obama returned this week to what was long known here as “the whites’ school.” It was his school and, by his telling, one of the most formative influences in his life.…
…In bridging the unusual racial undercurrents, Mr. Obama honed the people skills that helped him fit in and ultimately propelled him into politics, with the crossover appeal that won him the presidency.
“Hawaii is not perfect, but I do think it was more tolerant and accommodating of diverse cultures than the mainland was” when he was growing up, Mr. Obama said in unpublished excerpts from an interview last year. “I think that spirit helped to shape my attitudes toward people. And if you’re in a school that has Chinese kids, Filipino kids and Japanese kids and white kids, Samoan kids, by necessity I think you’re forced to learn to empathize with people who aren’t like you.”
Star Bulletin
Classmates share glow
Obama's Punahou pals give interviews to the media and praise their old friend
By Alexandre Da Silva
adasilva@starbulletin.com
Tom Boyle is producing an Internet video about him. Bart DaSilva has endorsed him on the radio. Alan Lum has had countless media interviews about his former basketball teammate. A number of high school classmates of Sen. Barack Obama, most of whom have not seen him or kept in touch for nearly 30 years, are finding themselves playing small parts in his bid for the White House.
…But nearly three decades have passed since they left Punahou, and for many, memories of Obama have faded to images of a friendly kid who juggled books and basketball. There is no mention of a vocal student determined to change the world, just a basketball-obsessed boy who was back on the court the day after winning the state championships with his senior year team.
"The Barry you saw back then, he was a little bit different ... not out in the limelight," said Burt Heilbron, another classmate, who is vice president of Hawaiian Agents Inc., a product warehousing and distribution company. "He was not outspoken, but always a very well-liked person at Punahou."
The Fogbow
Memories of Barack Obama
Birthers claim that no one from Obama's past has come forward saying they knew him. Where are the pictures? Where are the interviews with his friends, his teachers? Why does no one remember him growing up? It's as if he burst on the scene with no past.
Like everything else Birther, this meme is easily debunked.
Hawaii: from Birth to Age 6
Indonesia: from Age 6 to Age 10
Hawaii: Age 10 to High School Graduation
(this blog has an extensive collection of classmate's comments)
Sports Illustrated
Obama discusses his hoops memories at Punahou High
Barack Obama was a reserve guard on the 1979 Punahou state title team
Obama played behind future USC and NFL tight end John Kamana
" I learned a lot about discipline ... about being more team oriented."
While reporting a story on Punahou High, I spoke to the school's most famous alum, who happened to be a member of the Buff n' Blue's 1979 state championship basketball team.
While Barack Obama was not a starter on that squad, the Senator "definitely had game," says Dan Hale, a member of that team who is now the school's boys' basketball coach. "There was a group of us gym-rat types, always looking for a game. Barack could play. He had a passion for it. He had a nice little running jumper in the lane, with his signature double-pump. If he missed, he'd be the first guy following his shot. If you left him open, he'd stick it, but he'd take you to the hoop, too."
ABC News
The 'Rat-Ballers': Obama's High School Crew
By NEAL KARLINSKY (@NealKarlinsky) and DAN MORRIS
April 26, 2007
The year was 1979 and Hawaii's Punahou High School basketball team was in the state finals, dominating, 32-11, at the half. Out on the court was No. 23, but long before Michael Jordan made that number famous, another player was standing out for other reasons. His name was Barry Obama.
Sometimes called "Barry O'bomber" for his jump shot, that player is better known today as presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama. At least, that's how he's known everywhere else. Obama's teammates Alan Lum and Dan Hale say those years with the kid they called "Barry" are some of their most memorable. The three friends were part of a basketball-obsessed group of students known as the "Rat-ballers."
"I mean in that forum of a basketball or a pickup game or you know, as a teammate. … He just had something about him. He had this charismatic nature," Hale said.
Politico
In Hawaii, Media Surfs Obama's Past
By HANS NICHOLS | 3/13/07 5:21 PM EDT
HONOLULU -- Until recently, the players on Hawaii's 1979 state basketball championship team thought their glory days were behind them, consigned to yearbooks and faded newspaper clippings.
Now lots of people are interested in helping graduates of Punahou School jog their foggy memories, trolling for revelations about a young man who spent much of his time that season riding the bench. The Los Angeles Times weighed in the other day. Vanity Fair is coming soon.
…There are, however, chapters in Obama's high school narrative that are not subject to dispute. Just as he was the only African-American on the basketball team, he was also the only jock working on the school's literary magazine, Ka Wai Ola. In his poem, "An Old Man," there are glimpses of a tortured adolescent as well as a budding orator.
"I saw an old forgotten man/On an old, forgotten road," begins the 12-line poem. The man is "staggering and numb" but eventually "pulls out forgotten dignity from under his flaking coat,/And walks a straight line along the crooked world."
That thoughtful poet is not remembered by any of his basketball buddies, coaches or friends. Through the haze of the '70s, they recall only the "rat baller" who was always up for a game.
Finally, if anyone would have dug up dirt on the teen Obama, these conspiratorial birthers would have. Yet the worst they can say is what Obama himself made public, in his own books! I am not worried about ghosts from Obama's past.
The Obama File
Punahou (part way down the page)
While at Punahou School, Obama turns into a disenchanted teenage rebel, experimenting with cocaine and marijuana. Obama admits in "Dreams" that during high school he frequently smoked marijuana, drank alcohol, even used cocaine occasionally.
In his book, Obama recalls that he had "been headed" to the status of "junkie" or "pothead", which he describes as "the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man". He recalls smoking "reefer" in the backs of his friends' vans, dorm rooms and "on the beach with a couple of Hawaiian kids who had dropped out of school."
Obama, told a group of students in New Hampshire that his drug use had caused him to "waste a lot of time" during his high school years.
And don't miss
this wonderful diary of a Kog's encounter with the young Barack Obama.