UNLV senior the new Rebel in chief?

By Rob Miech

Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

What Tarrence Brown started in late June picked up steam, spread from grassroots to grocery stores and culminated in a big victory for his candidate on Nov. 4.

UNLV walk-on basketball player Rob Ketchum even fielded a few triumphant calls that evening.

“It went from two or three people, to 200 or 300,” Ketchum said of the growing group of friends, relatives and strangers who constantly remind him of his likeness to President-elect Barack Obama.

“It’s gotten pretty bad. I got a couple of calls on Election Night – ‘Congrats, Obama!’ – and a lot of them on my voice mail.”

Compliments even came from one of the highest offices.

“I mean, my mom said, ‘You really do kind of resemble him, honey,’” Ketchum said of his mother, Kim Madden.

At a recent practice, Derrick Jasper, the guard who transferred from Kentucky to UNLV, barked “Let’s go, Obama!” at Ketchum, who was participating in a shooting contest.

“That’s definitely not my joke,” Jasper said. “They’ve been calling him that for a while. There’s definitely a resemblance. They look exactly alike. They could be brothers.

“He could be a lookalike, make money off going places and doing appearances.”

Brown, a UNLV student and Ketchum’s friend, might not have started the Ketchum wave, but he played a role in escalating it from a ripple.

Before UNLV left for a two-week tour of Australia in June, it ended a 10-day stretch of practices with a full-speed scrimmage at the Thomas & Mack Center.

About 500 fans showed to send the team Down Under.

Brown sat a dozen or so rows behind the bench.

“The next president of the United States!” Brown yelled as Rebels coach Lon Kruger put Ketchum into the game.

Ketchum, 22, slightly smirked.

“Ohhhh, noooooo,” he said after a recent practice when reminded of that June scrimmage.

“A good friend of mine was Obama for Halloween. He sent me a picture. ‘Does it look like someone?’ Yeah, yeah. I got it. Yeah.”

Ketchum has compared photographs, at a certain angle, of himself and the president-elect.

“There’s a little bit of something there,” Ketchum said. “If you really look at a side-by-side picture of both ... it’s not bad at all. I consider myself a good-looking guy.”

He smiled.

Although Kruger said he had never pondered the resemblance or heard other players call Ketchum “Obama,” several Rebels believe the senior could pass for the senator from Illinois.

“Rob looks like him, definitely,” said senior guard Wink Adams. “We’re always messing with him like that. We always tease him about that.”

Does Ketchum have a future as an Obama stand-in?

“I don’t think so,” Adams said.

Kidding and facial similarities aside, Ketchum is excited to be living in interesting times, indeed.

The election of the country’s first black president was globally viewed as transcendent.

“Growing up, I didn’t really experience some things that older people have experienced,” said Ketchum, a Sacramento native. “Still, I didn’t know how far we’ve come in 100 years. I didn’t think I’d see the day.

“But seeing that my vote actually counted? It’s amazing. I believe it’s a new day. It’s going to change everything.”

Although new to the political arena, Ketchum has developed a wide range of beliefs and an open mind.

He wasn’t upset with President Bush.

“Maybe he saw what he did wrong his first four years,” Ketchum said. “I was giving him a chance. Like Obama. You just have to give him a chance. He’s our president, regardless if you like it or not.

“We’d be a lot better if we just all do our part to get (the economy, etc.) under control.”

Ketchum’s brother, Danny – who had never voted – called Rob before the election to make sure he voted. He watched the debates, tracked speeches and studied the wives.

“It was crazy on MySpace and Facebook, the whole younger generation got into politics,” Ketchum said. “I don’t know if that’s happened before. When did you see presidential T-shirts and hats?"

Or a history-making president-elect walking across the UNLV campus to get to basketball practice at the Thomas & Mack Center on time?

Was that? No. Obama?

Ketchum briefly laughed.

“It’s more than just him being president,” he said. “It opened a lot of eyes to what’s going on in our country. A lot of times in college, you don’t know what’s going on in the world.

“But we learned a lot.”