Rush Gymnasium
As a high school senior at Punahou School inHonolulu, Obama was a member of the basketball team that won the Hawai’i state championship. Although he did not play on the intercollegiate level at Occidental, he was a regular at the lunchtime pick-up games played by students and faculty in Rush Gym. Obama was always conscious of what was going on around him, remembers Kent Goss ’83, who playedon the JV team his freshman year. “He saw the court well. He shared the ball. And he wasn’t afraid to go to the hoop.” Eric Newhall ’67, professor of English and comparative literary studies, also played with the future president in those “noonball” games. “I think Occidental’s greatest contribution to American politics lies in persuading Barack Obama that his future did not lie in basketball,” Newhall says.