(born 1943), U.S. basketball player and politician. After a successful collegiate and professional basketball career, Bill Bradley was elected to the United States Senate from New Jersey in 1978. A three-season All-American at Princeton University, he also was captain of the United States basketball team that won a gold medal at the Olympics in Tokyo in 1964. After graduating from Princeton in 1965, he attended Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar. He joined the New York Knickerbockers as a forward in December 1967 and stayed with the team for ten years. In 1997 he left the Senate after 18 years of service.