Mark Warner, that is 🙂 The former governor and next Senator played Sunday afternoon in a basketball game that pitted the Virginia Beach 
Firefighters, sporting yellow t-shirts, against the Virginia Beach Police Department, wearing – what else? – blue ones. The Police team was coached by Survivor star, Virginia Beach’s own Rudy Boesch.
Demonstrating his basketball prowess, Warner scored the first points of
the game. (And it wasn’t because they cleared out for him, either.) He also showed that he knew how to play a little defense, having warned his fellow players ahead of time that they should watch out for his elbows 🙂
But he wasn’t the only one with game out there. 
Candidate in the 21st district Bobby Mathieson, whose campaign arranged this public event, did quite well, scoring a few of his team’s final points. And Virginia Beach Commissioner of the Revenue 
Phil Kellam managed to get on the floor as well, although I don’t recall if he scored. (For that matter, I didn’t catch the final score but the Police Department team won. If I had to pick at the beginning who was going to win, I would have picked the Firefighters since they seemed to have all the tall players 😉 )
Among those in the cheering section were Virginia Beach Mayor Meyera Oberndorf and her husband, Roger, Secretary of Finance Jody Wagner, School Board Member Pat Edmondson, and former Congressman Owen Pickett. The small but vocal crowd also included folks from all over Hampton Roads. 6th district Senate candidate Ralph Northam was scheduled to play but couldn’t make it.
A good time was had by all. Those of you who didn’t make it missed out on some good basketball – and that wonderful Jody’s Popcorn 🙂
By the way – there was one person there that didn’t have game.
Technorati Tags: Mark Warner, Bobby Mathieson
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
Holy crap, Brian, you’re tracking candidates at a basketball game? Seriously? And YOU’RE doing it? You can’t even get a volunteer to go watch a basketball game?
The hilarious (and awesome) thing about this all is that when I first heard about the event, it sounded like a trivial waste of time and poorly thought out to me. In retrospect, it sounds like it was an great event. You’ve got Bobby Mathieson playing basketball with one of the most popular governors in Virginia’s history and Phil Kellam, who won the 21st district last year, which is pretty cool. And I’m particularly stunned to learn that Rudy Boesch decided to come out and participate in an event organized by a Dem candidate. Rudy usually (used to?) votes Republican. I know. I’ve asked him.
But the most amazing thing to me is to find out that Brian Kirwin doesn’t think there’s anything more important to do with his time with less than one month to go before E-day than to sit in the back row and film a basketball game. Clearly, I was wrong about this event. Mathieson’s campaign must be doing pretty darned well to create that much political significance around a simple basketball game. Go Bobby, go!
Wow…someone needs to track this guy and show him the clip of his life. A mullett and jorts (jean shorts)???? 1986 called and it wants its bad style back.
I laughed a little when I saw this … it brought back memories of an afternoon this past summer when I played in a pick up game of basketball with Mark Warner. This past June, a number of my friends and I (we had all just graduated from UVa) would spend the afternoons in one of the UVa gyms trying to get the most out of our soon to expire student benefits.
One day we walked into a nearly empty gym, only to see Mark Warner shooting hoops, by himself, in one of the far corners. We had a group of 9 players and needed one more – the rest is history.
I actually had to cover him for the first game – he was fundamentally sound: boxing out, rebounding, tough defense – a lot of fun to play a game of basketball with.
Vivian,
Please tell me you scored a bucket. I had a bet on you need the dough.!!!!
um, GEM – in order to score, one has to play. And I didn’t. Hope you didn’t lose any money 😉
I concur about the 80’s attire. If you’re going to wear this do it in the privacy of your own home. My eyes do not need to be assaulted by your horrible fashion choices. Did someone send his picture to mullet hunters.com?