Most athletes when they’re done playing find careers related to their fields, weather that’s coaching, scouting or commentating. Few have decided to go into the arena of public politics. But that’s what Bill Bradley did. The long time Knicks forward became one of American’s most influential Senators. Bradley was the top recruited high school basketball players and initially chose Duke, but after breaking his foot he reconsidered and decided upon Princeton. He would go on the dominate the Ivy League averaging 30 points a game his freshman season. He was named an all-American in 3 of his four seasons at Princeton, the 1965 Most Outstanding player and the 1965 Final Four Most outstanding player. He was also selected to play on the 1964 Mens National team in the Tokyo Olympics.

After a great four years at Princeton Bradley went pro and was selected by the Knicks with their territorial selection in the 1965 draft. This would be the last draft that there would be territorial selections. Bradley initially did not join the Knicks but rather decided to go to Oxford and play in Europe. He lead his Italian league team to the championship and just two months before graduation he dropped out to join the military. He served only six months in the military before joining the Knicks. Later Oxford allowed him to take special exams to graduate.

Bradley joined the Knicks mid way through his rookie season and seen action in only 45 games averaging 8 points a game. He played out of position as he was a forward who was forced to play guard. He broke out his second year averaging 12 points and 4 rebounds.

In 69-70 the Knicks won their first of two championships in the decade, and in franchise history. They defeated the Lakers in the famous Willis Reed game 7. The Knicks won another title in 1973 and Bradley was part of both teams. In 1973 Bradley made his only all-star appearance of his career scoring 4 points in the game.

Bradley played all 10 seasons of his NBA career with the Knicks, appearing in 742 games and averaging 12 points a game. He retired after an injury plagued 1976-77 season. He was selected to the Hall-of-Fame in 1983. The next year the Knicks retired his jersey number.

He was elected to the United States Senate in 1979 and spent the next 18 years there until 1977. As a Democrat he was a key opposition member to many of President Reagan’s initiatives, however, on many occasions he worked with the Republics to get bills past. The most notable is the 1986 federal tax code overhaul and the Freedom Support Act which was an exchange program between the United States and Soviet Union.

In 2000 Bradley ran for President of the United States on the Democratic ticket. He lost to Al Gore but did get the endorsement of several people including Michael Jordan, and Ed Koch.

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