“Having LeBron suddenly guard you – this mountain of a human – you never feel so small and weak,” confessed former US president Barack Obama, after what was just supposed to be a friendly pickup match of basketball in 2010. However, as Obama—on the occasion of his 49th birthday—set foot on the court to play his favorite game, there was much more at stake, but not without some serious incidents on the court, including a busted lip. But before we get to that…

When Obama served his term as the President, while his speeches captivated fans and peers, outside of it, he indulged in the sport that may have shaped his identity. The White House’s tennis court was squashed, and in place came a basketball court where he would host his legendary pick-up games. NBA icons and politicians alike joined Obama on the court, where he was often viewed as the ‘facilitator.’ But even without the star power, the games continued, with one unbreakable rule—no one was allowed to take it easy on him…

On the October 22 episode of The YOUNG MAN & the THREE podcast with Tyrese Haliburton, the former POTUS reminisced about an iconic pickup he organized on the occasion of his 49th birthday. “We set it up sort of as a benefit because we had a bunch of wounded warriors in the stands so they could watch…we had three pros and two amateurs on every team. But everybody came. LeBron, Dwade (Dwyane Wade), Derrick Rose…CP3 (Chris Paul), P Gasol, Joakim Noah, Carmelo Anthony were there…Kobe came, but Kobe had just come back from Germany, you know, I don’t know his blood was that blood work so so he couldn’t play, but he sat in the stands.

“Bill Russell showed up, Magic (Johnson) came and I’m pretty sure this was the last time Magic ever actually played full-court basketball or at least he tried because we didn’t think he was going to play and he said, ‘Oh man, I will’. So he puts on a jersey and, you know, he’s thrown behind the back passes, but they were kind of going to the bleachers because, you know, I don’t think he had played for 10 years…but we had a great time…”

However, on the court, he wasn’t the President but a hooper. His respectful demeanor changed to trash-talking. “I would talk about them after I beat them, and they would get mad, and I’ve got proof,” he revealed, mentioning how he ended up with an injury from his own staffer just a few days after his showdown against LeBron James

“In one of the pickup games, not this All-Star game, I got an elbow in my lip and it split open. I had to have 12 stitches and I had to speak the next day, so you can see in, this is I think, Thanksgiving weekend…You can see when as I’m talking I got a little caterpillar right on my lip. It’s just the stitches were in there, you know. And the photographer caught the sequence of me getting bowed I’m on the floor. There’s blood all over, everybody’s standing over me looking and I had it printed out and I sent it to the guy who was just some staffer on Capitol Hill. I had it framed and I signed it to him: ‘To the only guy who ever got away with assaulting the president’.”

The man who hit Obama also came out with his story later…

After laying low for three years, Rey Decerega opened up about what went down on that fateful day. “He was crowding me…So I swung the ball from my left side to my right side,” he said and compared injuring the then-incumbent president to “a car accident” and “almost an out-of-body experience.”

“I learned today the president is both a tough competitor and a good sport,” he said about the 44th POTUS. While that was true, Obama’s drive on the court did force him to make a security change, and Decerega was never invited to play again. As for Obama, things have changed for him as well…

Barack Obama switches from basketball to golf

To Barack Obama, basketball has always been his escape. He not only feels it helped him make close friends, but it also reflected on his personality. Playing predominantly in Hawaii as a youth, the passion carried over for years. He would attend basketball games and host NBA players, and even to them, no mercy would be shown.

Joakim Noah, a former center for his favorite time, the Bulls recalled the incident when the former POTUS berated his jumper during one of his presidential pickup games. However, with age as well as the ramifications of the intensity these games could reach, Obama needed to make a vital decision.

53 at the time, he understood that his body didn’t recover the same. For that whole year, he didn’t even host a presidential basketball game.

Hence, he found solace in the greens. Barack Obama made the switch to golf. It didn’t suspend his competitive instincts, though. Having shared the course with Michael Jordan, the Bulls legend praised the former POTUS for his incredible golfing skills. Finding the recreational anecdote was vital for Mr. Obama. “I get so much politics I don’t want to be inundated with a bunch of chatter about politics during the day,” he said about the same.

Although it’s not full-court contests anymore, he still loves to talk and, at times, shoot a few jumpers. His passion for the sport is one that won’t fade away anytime soon.