Obama: I had Linsanity before having Linsanity was cool

“I knew about Jeremy before you did, or everybody else did,” Obama told Bill Simmons, the sports columnist and founded of the ESPN-affiliated website Grantland.com

The reason, Obama said on a Simmons podcast: Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who like Lin played college hoops at Harvard.

“And so way back when, Arne and I were playing and he said, ‘I’m telling you, we’ve got this terrific guard named Jeremy Lin at Harvard,'” Obama said. “And then one of my best friends — his son is a freshman at Harvard — and so when he went for a recruiting trip he saw Lin in action.”