BILL BRADLEY: 50 Years Since "Where U R"

The Number Has Been Retired.

Some people stand out in their Freshman year. Bill Bradley did that.

He attracted the attention of John McPhee, a writer for The New Yorker. It's now 50 years since McPhee's article for The New Yorker about Bradley in the January 1965 issue. It was published before Bradley led Princeton to the NCAA Final Four.

Princeton was the first Ivy League basketball team to get that far. The New York Times today paid homage to the man and McPhee's story on the fifth page of the Sports Section (under "Road to Indianapolis" where the NCAA Final Four is being played) and this story is already before 10 am on Sunday the newspaper's most-emailed story.

The title of the article and a subsequent book, "A Sense of Where You Are" came from Bradley after he sent a ball through the hoop while keeping his eyes on McPhee. 

He said: 

When you have played basketball for a while, you don't need to look at the basket when you are in close like this. You develop a sense of where you are.