Hardwood to Campaign Trail

Early morning wake ups. Carrying luggage and bags. Making sure your boss has everything he needs for the day of work. There are no weekends, or any vacations. Even personal time can be scarce. For a former National Champion and Duke Graduate, this is his life. His boss is Barack Obama. Reggie Love, a former walk on who found himself playing significant minutes as a freshman on Dukes National Championship run in 2001, now finds himself traveling the country as the personal aid of Senator Obama.
In 2005 Love’s resume made its way to Senator Obama’s desk, and although Love had been offered a job with Goldman Saks, the political science major took the pay cut and began working in Senator Obama’s mail room. “My first year I made $30,000” said Love in an interview with Rachel Nichols of ESPN’s E:60. The job would come with a promotion for Love.
A year later in January 2007 Obama selected Love as his personal aid for the campaign, an offer Love could not turn down. The two had an immediate connection. Although separated by twenty years the two had a love for sports and often had arguments over who was better, Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. An argument Obama says Love stopped bringing up following Kobe’s loss in last spring’s NBA Finals.
Sports are a release for the two who began playing basketball on Primary Days as a good luck ritual and they now continue to play on days off. There’s no denying the two share an incredible bond one that is needed in order to spend up to sometimes twenty hours a day together.
So what’s next for Love with the election only two weeks away, possibly more of the same? “If Reggie wants to stay involved in my work then I will keep him for as long as I can,” said Obama when asked about Love working in the White House. He would go on to add that Reggie is like a little brother to him.