Barack Obama’s High School Basketball Jersey Goes Up for Auction
Written by SOURCE on July 27, 2019
Gilbert Arenas, Drake, and Fabolous are probably sectioning off a small fortune in hopes to add this exclusive jersey to their collections.
Heritage Auctions has put Barack Obama‘s 1978-79 Punahou High School jersey on the auctioning block. The starting bid for the jersey starts at $25,000, but according to CBS, it’s expected to sell for at least $100,000. The jersey is white with blue and gold trim. There are blue letters that read “Punahou” on the front with a blue No. 23 on both the front and back. Obama wore this jersey his senior year while Punahou’s varsity basketball team competed for the Hawaii state championship.
The jersey is currently owned by Peter Noble. Noble is three years younger than Obama and wore the jersey after the school transitioned to new uniforms and gave the old varsity jerseys to the junior varsity team. Noble is including a yearbook from Obama’s senior year in the auction as further proof that the jersey was worn by the former president.
Obama has maintained a close connection with the game of basketball. During his presidency, he had the White House tennis court converted into a basketball court, where he regularly played pick-up games with his friends and other officials. He’s also frequented several professional and college games, including last year’s Duke-North Carolina game. Obama is also an avid Chicago Bulls fans and coincidentally he wore the same number in high school that Michael Jordan made famous.
Naturally, Heritage feels like his high school jersey is a very significant piece of sports memorabilia.
“To the degree that a white cataloger could presume to speak to what the sport of basketball has meant to the African-American experience of the past half-century, this is far more than a simple article of sports memorabilia,” Heritage’s description reads. “Taking a view wider than simple athletic greatness–a strong argument could be made that this auction lot represents the most important basketball jersey that exists.”
