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Student-athletes take election seriously

November 4, 2008

We’ve all seen now-President-elect Barack Obama playing basketball: with children, military personnel and even a Sports Illustrated writer. Sure he’s got a smooth jump-shot and a nice, old-school crossover, but would this really draw in the votes of athletes?

“I don’t care if my president can play basketball,” said Malik Cooke, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Cooke, a forward on the Wolf Pack basketball team, said it was the issues that led him to cast his ballot for Obama.

A football player who wished to remain anonymous said the president-elect’s views are what spurred him to vote democratic.

“He looks at both aspects of the situation,” he said. “The promises he makes, I’ve listen to all them and I really believe they can happen.”

What? These jocks, muscle heads and wearers of letterman jackets actually care about what candidates had to say? Believe it.

“A lot of my teammates and a lot of athletes on other teams went to go see Obama speak when he came to campus,” said Margaret Doolittle, a 20-year-old junior swimmer.

Obama’s Sept. 30 visit to UNR’s campus drew a crowd of about 12,000 people, mostly university students.

Samantha Neff, a 21-year-old junior swimmer at UNR, tried getting more active in the Obama event.

“(Neff) was the one of the team who was most involved,” said Kim Medina, a 19-year-old teammate of Neff. “She even volunteered to help out when Obama came to campus, but couldn’t because of practice.”

Potential voters lined up as early as 6 a.m. in an attempt to catch a glimpse of the then-presidential candidate.

Mike Ball, a 19-year-old freshman at UNR, was one of those hoping for an opportunity to see Obama.

“I went to the event he had on campus,” said Ball, a running back for the Wolf Pack football team. “I had to show up early because there were so many people there, but it was worth the wait. Hearing him speak, there’s nothing more motivating.”

Ball, like many other University of Nevada athletes, early-voted for Obama, but said despite the publicity surrounding this election, he felt little pressure from his teammates to vote for one particular candidate.

Alyx Sacks, a 20-year-old soccer player, said there were no discrepancies among her teammates as well but the team did have watch parties of some sort.

“While we were in Vegas for a tournament, Obama had his acceptance speech as the democratic nominee,” the sophomore said. “When we got to dinner, the TV was going,  and the whole team was just kind of glued, trying to hear what he had to say.”

University of Nevada athletes were glued, everyone was glued to their television set Tuesday when President-elect Obama was officially announced victor.

Obama’s victory came largely in part to the domination he had of the youth vote (67 percent). But Doolittle said her elders are what motivated her to vote for the democrat.

“The environment I grew up in, I saw policies happen that affected my parents,” she said. “I’m still at this young age that I haven’t been personally affected by taxes, healthcare, things like that. But I know they will affect me in the future, so the way my parents were affected definitely affects my view on politics.”

By Juan López 

Written by admin · Filed Under Campus 

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