Could America’s biggest basketball star show up 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. unannounced and score a chance to meet with the White House’s biggest basketball star?
Apparently not, as Shaquille O’Neal, with hopes of meeting with President Barack Obama, was turned down by Secret Service Sunday.
O’Neal — in town to host WWE’s Monday Night Raw at the Verizon Center — posed an impromptu survey last Friday as a guest on D.C. Radio’s “The Mike Wise Show” to gauge his chances of getting in to see the first b-baller.
“I got on a nice suit, I’m in D.C. paying a visit, I jump out of a cab in front of the White House, I don’t use none of my political/law enforcement connections: If I go to the gate and say, ‘Hey, I’m in town, I would like to see the president,’ do I get in, or do I not get in?,” the Cleveland Cav asked on the air.
His question was answered Sunday afternoon: He was denied.
“The white house wouldn’t let me in, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?,” he tweeted. (We bet Chicago Bulls’ great Michael Jordan would have had a better chance.)
Some basketball players that did successfully meet with Obama were this year’s WNBA champions, members of the Detroit Shock. Joining Obama in celebrating the women’s basketball team’s win Monday were the Shock’s home state Democratic politicians Sen. Carl Levin, Rep. Sander Levin, and Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick.
And Obama’s day talking sports days didn’t stop there. He later met with FIFA president Sepp Blatter to lobby the head of the international soccer organization in the hopes of getting the bid to host the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022.
But perhaps Obama may have wanted to sound a bit more positive in his response to Blatter’s invitation for him to attend the tournament next summer in South Africa.
“You know, I hope to,” Obama said. “We’re going to take a look at the schedule.”
