A (brief) history of Presidential brackets

Thanks, Obama.

(Andy Katz and Barack Obama)

For a moment on Thursday night, Kamala Harris’ March Madness bracket became all the rage on Twitter X.

Why? Because the Vice President had picked the biggest upset of the first day of the men’s NCAA Tournament: #14 seed Oakland knocking off #3 seed Kentucky.

Here’s her bracket:

Why did Harris pick the Golden Grizzlies to beat one of the most storied programs in college basketball history in the 1st Round? Was it the name — Oakland — made her think of her native California? (Oakland University is actually in Rochester, Michigan.) Or is Harris just a basketball savant?

The very fact that we were having that conversation would have been unthinkable even two decades ago. Presidents (and vice presidents) didn’t waste their time picking March Madness brackets! They had too many important things to do! Running the government — and all that!

The story of how all that changed is a good one — and one that I tell in my 2023 book “Power Players: Sports, Politics and the American Presidency.” (Shameless plug!)

It goes like this. In the run-up to the 2008 election, college hoops expert Andy Katz, then of ESPN, was working on a profile of Barack Obama’s pickup basketball habit, for the Worldwide Leader.

Katz had been asking for an interview with Obama for months. Finally, just 9 days before election day, Katz got his time with the then Illinois Senator — at a Hampton Inn in Dunn, North Carolina. (Obama was slated to do an event at nearby Fort Bragg later in the day.)

Katz and Obama spent 20 minutes talking. As the interview was wrapping up, Robert Gibbs, the campaign’s press secretary, came into the room and told Obama that he needed to hang out for a little while longer.

Why? During the Katz interview, Colin Powell had endorsed Obama on “Meet the Press.” The campaign needed time to work the endorsement — a major moment in the race — into the candidate’s stump speech.

“For some period of time, it’s me and Obama in the room — just hanging out,” Katz told me. Katz said that in that moment he had an “epiphany”: “I stand up and say ‘Senator, I hav a great idea. If you win, how about I come to the White House and we do the NCAA tournament bracket?’” Obama, a hoops head, quickly agreed.

After Obama won, Katz followed up with the White House to make sure the President-elect was still game to pick some, um, games. He was.

And so, in March 2009, Katz was secreted into the White House — and the president made his picks. Here’s Obama’s bracket from that first year:

(Obama picked the eventual national champion — North Carolina — correctly. But, in a political faux pax, he and Katz didn’t fill out a women’s bracket. For the remaining seven years of his presidency, Obama did both brackets.)

ESPN ran (and ran) it as a segment. Katz wrote a story about it. It became, well, a thing.

Which was all part of the White House’s plan, according to sportswriter Alexander Wolff, who wrote a book about Obama and basketball called “The Audacity of Hoop.

“It seemed to be that everyone in America is doing it, so I am going to do it too,” Wolff said of Obama’s thinking, adding that the White House went on to “blow it up into this springtime ritual [and] ESPN didn’t mind either.”

In retrospect, it seems like a no brainer. Whether you like college basketball (or even sports!) or not, everyone fills out a bracket. People love to talk about their perfect bracket or their busted bracket. It’s one of a very small number of shared American experiences these days.

Politicians are forever trying to demonstrate their “normalness” to the voters. What better way to do that than to commiserate over a busted bracket?

And so, the tradition that Obama started 19 years ago lives on today. President Joe Biden released his brackets — men’s and women’s — this week on social media, writing:

Folks, it's time for college basketball’s biggest tournament. I wish the best of luck to all the teams competing.

I’m picking South Carolina Women's Basketball to win it all, and in the Men’s bracket the Huskies to go back-to-back.’

Here’s Biden’s full men’s bracket:

And here’s his women’s bracket:

Little chalky there, Mr. President. Picking the #1 overall seeds in both tournaments to win the championships? Not exactly bold!

How’s your bracket looking? As for mine, let’s just say I had BYU making it to the Elite 8. Ugh.