Video: President Obama Knew About Jeremy Lin Way Before You Did

President Obama's troll face

In between trying on hipster fedoras and assassinating Andrew Breitbart, President Obama fit in some time in his busy schedule to sit down with Grantland's Bill Simmons and talk about sports. And of course Obama took some time to talk about Jeremy Lin—actually, he bragged that he knew about Lin before it was cool: "I knew about Jeremy before you did, or anyone else did."

Jeremy Lin is doing good. I knew about Jeremy before you did, or anyone else did, because Arne Duncan, my Secretary of Education, was captain of the Harvard team. And so way back when, Arnie and I were playing, and he said, "I'm telling you we've got this terrific guard named Jeremy Lin at Harvard." And then one of my best friends, his son is a freshman at Harvard, so when he went out for a recruiting trip he saw Lin in action. So I've been on the Jeremy Lin bandwagon for awhile.

Duncan has previously tweeted about Lin before. Obama, of course, was a graduate of Harvard Law School, while Lin went to Harvard as an undergrad. Obama also talked about watching SportsCenter in the morning, sneaking in league games at night, and says that while he can't take credit for Linsanity, he "was there early."

It's a great story. And what's interesting is the fact that somehow folks were missing it in practice. That's what's interesting, because you have to assume that during scrimmages, he was running that pick and roll pretty well. It's a terrific story, he seems like a wonderful young man, and it elevates this great sport all around the world. It can't hurt ratings for basketball in China.

Check out the full interview at Grantland, including his favorite White House visits from championship teams, wisdom he recently dispensed to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, and how he beat a WNBA player in Horse. Our favorite part: he guarantees that his hometown Chicago Bulls will eventually make it to the White House as champions while he's in office—and they have plenty of time, because "I've got another five years here."

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Ben Yakas in News on March 1, 2012 11:25 AM

Comments [rss]

DonMcKenzie

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fruitstand

I like President Obama, I just like him.

Paul

Research the man and you will find a lot of CIA connections involving his grand parents and his parents. He is nothing more then a compromised tool of the power elite and hes doing a wonderful job pushing the agenda forward. These doctored and manipulated positive economic reports recently are lies. We are in terrible shape economically, because our whole financial system at its heart is run by the federal reserve which is a illegitimate usurper of our sovereignty. We Americans are debt slaves to this banking cartel which is owned by eight extremely wealthy families. We as a nation have suffered a rogue CIA coup, by the will of the corporate banking elite collective funded by an unlimited supply of dollars the fed can make up and send off where ever it likes with out any proper outside over site in the name of keeping us safe and secure. If everyone could just wake up to the crony collectivist corporatist system, and reject the slick car sales men the elite hides behind we might have a chance at turning away from the coming collapse, ww3, and eventual out in the open corporate world government. God help us all.

smalll

"I knew about Jeremy before you did, or anyone else did" -- sounds pretty hipsterish to me.

Looks like old Orrin was right about Obama and his fedoras and his double skim lattes!

airtech1

Highly doubt, sir, that you were following Lin's senior year triumphs at Palo Alto High when you were working as junior senator. That said, nice college try for the Asian American vote.

Green Genes

You missed the part where he said he knew about him while he played at Harvard. Which was 3 years ago. Sir.

airtech1

I was responding to this quote: 'I knew about Jeremy before you did, or anyone else did..."

Jeremy was on the radar WAY before then, if you know anything about his bio. The fact that he got unrecruited by D1 was a travesty. Simply sounds like a "I was into that band when they were indie...before any of the masses..." sentiment, double-sir.

Roger_the_Shrubber

Can gothamist gets its collective nose any further up 0bama's butt?

TimSPC

I know, how dare the president be all likable and cool like that! Darn him! Darn him to heck!

Roger_the_Shrubber

How dare he be so pathetic as to hitch his wagon to the latest media fad.

Guest

your boy GW Bush did it too: shoe throwing is all the rage in the Middle East.

sketto

If you come to site like gothamist to get your news, you know what you're getting.

Roger_the_Shrubber

That is true.

But they do have their charm.

J_Temperance

I think this is more about everyone crawling up Lin's butt and as far as that goes, they've gone so far that they're grasping at Lin's tonsils while attempting to crawl out of his mouth.