Indiana students picked for 3-on-3 basketball game with Obama

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By Beth Boehne

Story Created: Apr 14, 2008 at 3:12 PM EST

Story Updated: Apr 14, 2008 at 9:05 PM EST

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Kory McKay has been assisting Barack Obama's presidential campaign. Now, he'll assist him on the basketball court.

McKay, who volunteers for Obama's campaign office in Kokomo, is one of two students from Indiana schools who earned a chance to play three-on-three basketball with the senator. High school students who registered 20 people to vote and university students who signed up 30 new voters for Indiana's May 6 primary were eligible to be chosen for the game.

Obama's campaign announced Monday that Blake Hancock, a Marion High School junior, and McKay, an Indiana University-Kokomo freshman, have been chosen to play. Hancock and McKay each collected more than 150 registration cards, Obama's campaign said.

The date of the game has not been decided.

McKay is excited about the chance to spend time with Obama. He met Obama briefly in Chicago in 2005 and shook hands with him again more recently in Muncie.

"To share the court with him, and at least show him my 3-point shot, will be a huge honor," McKay said.

McKay's father, Gary McKay, ran for mayor of Kokomo in 2003, and ran for city council numerous times as a Republican. Kory McKay said his father was fine with his choice to be a Democrat.

"When I told my father, he chuckled and said 'if that's what you want to do, that's fine with me,'" Kory McKay said. "He doesn't have any bitterness towards me. He taught me to look at people for who they are and not the color of their skin or the political party they represent."

Thirty-eight other students from around the state who helped in the Obama campaign's voter registration effort will also be invited to meet the Democratic senator before the game. The campaign said Indiana was chosen because of its rich basketball tradition.

Obama was a member of Hawaii's championship high school basketball team in 1979. A recent YouTube video clip shows him casually sinking a three-point shot at a school gym in South Carolina during a visit to promote his education policies.

"He's a political Michael Jordan," Kory McKay said. "I've heard he's a very talented ballplayer."

Hancock will select two friends to match up against the team of Obama, McKay and one other person.

Hancock hasn't picked his teammates yet. The 6-foot-3 varsity football and baseball player joked that he's made a lot of new acquaintances since winning the contest, but none of them will be on his team.

"I know who my real friends are," he said.

Obama's campaign staff said the game would likely be played according to standard three-on-three rules, in which the first team to reach 11 wins.

Obama is battling Hillary Rodham Clinton for the state's 72 pledged delegates that are still needed to sew up the Democratic nomination for president.

Kory McKay said he's glad he's on Obama's team, joking that he might have fouled him too hard if he was on the other squad.

"I don't have to worry about getting tackled by Secret Service."

Hancock said he's not worried about hurting Obama.

"I'm just going to play basketball," he said.

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