 Politics was a frequent subject of discussion in the Bradley household, and some of his relatives held local and county political offices. He majored in history at Princeton, and was present in the Senate chamber when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed. Van Breda Kolff and many others who knew him predicted that Bradley would be Governor of Missouri, or President, by 40. He spent his time at Oxford focusing on European political and economic history. In 1978, he said that congressman Mo Udall, himself a former professional basketball player, had told him ten years earlier that professional sports could help prepare him for politics, depending on what he did with his non-playing time.
