Bradley, Bill

Bill Bradley, byname of William Warren Bradley, (born July 28, 1943, Crystal City, Mo., U.S.), collegiate and professional basketball player who later served as a U.S. senator.

Bradley began to play basketball at age nine and became one of the best players in Missouri high school basketball history. At Princeton University (N.J.), Bradley, a forward, was a playmaker and high scorer, averaging 30.1 points a game during three seasons. He led the team to three straight Ivy League titles, earning All-American recognition each time. He was the first basketball player to win the Amateur Athletic Union’s Sullivan Award for the amateur athlete of the year (1965). He played on the U.S. team that won the gold medal at the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. After graduation he deferred a contract offer from the New York Knicks of the National Basketball Association (NBA) in order to study at Oxford University (M.A. 1968) as a Rhodes scholar. He joined the Knicks during the 1967–68 season and played with them until his retirement in 1977. During Bradley’s career the Knicks won two NBA championships (1970, 1973), with disciplined, aggressive defense. He was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983. Bradley wrote two books about his NBA experiences: Life on the Run (1977) covers professional basketball players during two weeks of the 1973–74 season, and Values of the Game (1998) contains essays in which Bradley reflects on the qualities necessary to succeed at both basketball and life.

After his retirement from professional basketball, Bradley immediately turned to politics. Without having held a lesser office he was elected to the U.S. Senate from New Jersey in 1978 and served three six-year terms. A liberal Democrat, he announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency on Jan. 12, 1999, but lost the Democratic nomination to Al Gore.