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Home | Office Holder | Bill Bradley
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Bradley was born and raised in a small-town suburb of St. Louis and excelled at basketball from an early age. He was a member of the Boy Scouts and did well academically, and was an all-county and all-state basketball player in high school. He was offered 75 college scholarships and did not finally decide on attending Princeton until three days before the 1961 fall semester began. While a student at Princeton, he earned a gold medal as a member of the 1964 Olympic basketball team and was the NCAA Player of the Year in 1965. After graduating in 1965, he attended Oxford on a Rhodes Scholarship, delaying a decision for two years on whether or not to play in the NBA. 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 two championship titles. Retiring in 1977, he ran for a seat in the United States Senate the following year, from his adopted home state of New Jersey, winning in his first try at elective office. He was re-elected in 1984 and 1990, and declined to run again when his third term expired, leaving the Senate in 1997. He began working on a campaign for the 2000 presidential election, announcing his candidacy in mid-1999. When he did not secure the Democratic nomination, he supported Al Gore's candidacy, and declined to run again for the Senate in 2002. Bradley is the author of six non-fiction books, most recently The New American Story, 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. |
