KANSAS CITY, Mo. (February 17, 2010) – Former Senator Bill Bradley, who combined distinguished careers in basketball, politics and government to become an iconic figure across America, has been selected as the recipient of the 2010 Court of Honor Award from the National Association of Basketball Coaches Foundation.
He will receive the award at the second annual Court of Honor Gala Experience on Monday,
May 17, 2010, at The Plaza Hotel in New York.
The Court of Honor Award is presented to an individual who has roots in college basketball, values those roots, and has gone on to distinguish himself in his profession, exhibiting the highest standards of leadership.
“There is no individual more deserving of the Court of Honor Award than Bill Bradley, who has committed himself to the principles of integrity, sportsmanship, leadership, service and education throughout his life,” said Mike Krzyzewski, president of the NABC Foundation and head basketball coach at Duke University.
Bradley is one of the nation’s most outstanding college basketball players ever, earning All-America honors in each of his three varsity seasons and was selected as the national player of the year in 1965. Bradley led Princeton University to the NCAA® Final Four® in 1965, was named the most outstanding player in the NCAA® tournament, and scored a Final Four® record 58 points in a single game. He was the first basketball player to win the James E. Sullivan Award, presented annually to the top amateur athlete in the United States and was a member of the gold medal winning U.S. Olympic team in 1964.
Drafted by the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association in 1965, Bradley delayed signing to attend Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He eventually signed with the Knicks in 1967 and played professionally for 10 seasons, helping New York win two NBA championships. Bradley was enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982.
Bradley represented the state of New Jersey in the U.S. Senate from 1979-1997 and was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2000. The author of six books on American culture, politics and the economy, he also is the host of American Voices, a weekly show on Sirius Satellite Radio.
Bradley has been a Senior Advisor and Vice Chairman of the International Council of JP Morgan & Co., Inc.; chief outside advisor to McKinsey & Company’s nonprofit practice; and is a Managing Director of Allen & Company, LLC.
The inaugural Court of Honor Gala Experience was held last April in Chicago, where Jerry Colangelo, chairman of USA Basketball and the man who assembled the gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team in 2008, received the Court of Honor Award.
Proceeds from the Court of Honor Gala Experience help fund the NABC Foundation’s programs, including the TICKET TO READING REWARDS (TTRR) program, a reading incentive program that encourages middle school students to read books outside the classroom and obtain rewards for reading. TICKET TO READING REWARDS has three primary components: reading rewards, tickets to local college basketball games and a coaching component for middle school coaches to both learn new techniques and to act as mentors for the reading program.
Former Chicago Superintendent of Schools Arne Duncan and John W. Rogers Jr., founder and CEO of Ariel Investments, LLC, were instrumental in the launch of the TTRR program in Chicago. The program is now being conducted at more than 150 schools nationwide.