The Phillipian

The Pot Pourri photo and profile of George W. Bush ’64. (Courtesy of Phillips Academy Archives)

“[George W. Bush] is the 62-year-old version of the person that I met when [I was] 15. He hasn’t changed at all as a person,” said Clay Johnson III ’64, fellow classmate, four-year roommate at Yale, and 14-year colleague in Austin and Washington D.C., of George W. Bush ’64.

Johnson said, “I don’t think there’s a public George Bush or a private George Bush, which I think is a real strength of his. George Bush is George Bush whether he’s your president or whether he’s your neighbor, or whether he’s your longtime friend. Obviously as an adult he’s more responsible and more focused than he was. [He is] more focused on adult matters and, in his case, world peace and world economy matters, whereas he wasn’t focused on those things [at Andover].”

Bush was always an athletic student. “If he wasn’t playing club sports, or junior varsity or varsity sports, he was out playing stick ball or something. He was always on the move,” said Johnson

Bush played varsity baseball, basketball and JV football while at Andover.

Aside from an active sports career at Andover, Bush also enjoyed a dynamic social life. “[Bush] was very popular at Andover, and unusually so in that, when he was a sophomore he had friends that were seniors and when he was a senior, he had friends that were sophomores,” said Johnson. “He was very energetic, [had a] great sense of humor [and was] fun to be around.”

Tom Lyons, Bush’s former American history teacher and football coach at Andover, said, “He was a popular [student] and the head cheerleader. He was a gregarious, friendly and open kid.”

“One of the faculty commented how strong school spirit was the year he was the head cheerleader,” said Johnson.

A unique aspect of Bush, according to Johnson, is his close connection to his Andover friends. “He has a number of very close friends that he first met at Andover, and I’m told that that’s very unusual for politicians, to maintain close friendships from their normal days, from their pre-political days… he has a very large group of friends, many of whom he met at Andover and at Yale.”

As president, Bush invited his former teacher Lyons to join the Fulbright Scholarship Board, which “funds scholars coming from around the world. It is the biggest exchange of graduate students in the world.” He said that Bush was always friendly to his classmates and teachers, even keeping acquaintances after Andover.

Neither Johnson nor Lyons said that they would have ever predicted that Bush would become President of the United States. Johnson said, “Nobody ever thinks about that when they’re 17 years old. He was at Andover before his father was involved in politics, [but] his grandfather then was the senator of Connecticut. So there was political involvement in his family.”

Said Lyons, “He was not interested in politics at all at school. He was interested in things that kids are interested in.”

Johnson said that Bush is not the same political figure as an individual acquaintance. “I think he’s much more reserved [during presidential speeches]. Standing at a podium, giving a speech, I don’t think the real George Bush comes out in that setting, although he’s given a lot of good speeches. He is genuinely energetic, genuinely charming, genuinely fun to be with and genuinely someone really good to be on the same team as.”

Johnson continued, “People don’t see the real George Bush that people do on an everyday basis. People that meet him for the first time… all come away saying, ‘He is nothing like I thought he was going to be,’ because they see a different kind of person.

“There are very different qualities that come through when he’s in a different stage setting. When he, for instance, visited ground zero in New York City, September 14, 2001, that’s the George Bush that people at Andover knew. When he had his arm around the fireman, and he had the bullhorn in his hand, he was in charge of spirits. In an active setting, that’s the real George Bush.”