Coach Obama Mentors Daughter’s Team - East Idaho News
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Coach Obama Mentors Daughter’s Team

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Getty P 110111 ObamaBasketball?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1328979369957Pete Souza/White House via Getty Images(WASHINGTON) — Between his many duties as Commander-in-Chief, President Obama seems to have added a new responsibility to his plate: coaching his daughter Sasha’s basketball team.

Weekends at the White House typically see a casually dressed Obama traveling to his daughters’ sports games and Saturday morning was no exception.

Or, if there are no events scheduled, he often takes the children and their friends to shoot hoops on their own. As such, the press is accustomed to seeing presidential assistants lugging sacks of athletic gear into his motorcade, weaving between Secret Service.

But media are rarely allowed to attend the games and according to Michelle Obama, the First Dad has taken a stronger role than previously known by actively instructing Sasha’s team.

“He hasn’t missed a game,” the First Lady said on Thursday. “I think he was hoping to get this weekend off, but I’m gone.”

Mrs. Obama is traveling this week and is currently in Florida.

It’s unclear how long the President has been participating in the team. However, he is not a stranger to the practice. A year ago Obama and his then-personal aide, Reggie Love, once acted as substitute coaches when the team regulars both couldn’t make it to a game.

It is well known that the president is an avid basketball fan. A young Obama played for his high school in Hawaii. Now he seems to go out of his way to spend free time on the court, even sporting a pair of ultra-rare sneakers. In 2010 his pastime backfired when another player accidentally hit him in the lip, resulting in 12 stitches.

Sasha Obama, 10, attends the prestigious Sidwell Friends School in Washington with her older sister, Malia. Past presidential daughters Chelsea Clinton and Tricia Nixon Cox are among the private institution’s alumni.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

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