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The Associated Press

FAIRBANKS -- Layne Lewis of Fairbanks was thrilled to again meet a personable President Bush on Wednesday, but he was less eager to take a seat on the fancy furniture at the White House.

Lewis, a captain of the 2007-08 Alaska Nanooks rifle team along with Patrik Sartz, got a tour of the White House that included visiting the library, the China Room, the Green Room, the ballroom and the dining room.

“It’s real nice. It’s basically like a museum,” Lewis said by cell phone Wednesday night from a hotel in Washington, D.C. “It’s not really homey because of the high-end furniture. It looks expensive so you’re kind of hesitant to sit down in it.”

After the tour, Lewis and Sartz went to the Diplomatic Room, where they, along with the captains of eight other NCAA championship teams, presented the president with a gift.

“It was a blue polar fleece team jacket,” Lewis said, adding that Bush was pleased and somewhat surprised to receive it.

When asked what previous captains Ryan Baum and Matt Rawlings gave the president when the Nanooks visited the White House for the first time last year, Lewis said “a blue polar fleece team jacket.”

Lewis, who said he wasn’t at all nervous about meeting the president, had an answer ready about the duplicate gift.

“There’s one for the first lady as well is what we told him,” said Lewis, a graduate of Monroe Catholic High School.

The entire 2007-08 squad — Lewis, Sartz, Jace Bures, Billy Galligan, Cody Rutter, Christofer Olofsson (who flew in from Sweden), Taylor Beard, Becky Herschberger, and Fairbanks natives Ida Petersen and Charles Whitmer — then gathered on the South Lawn for a nearly 10-minute ceremony.

Bush, who worked briefly in Fairbanks in the mid-1970s, said he was impressed with the Nanooks’ accomplishment but joked that he was also slightly disappointed because they had bested a military team.

“He made a point of how we beat the Army team again. He made a few cracks about that,” Lewis said.

If the Nanooks succeed in winning their fourth straight NCAA title next March and get another invite to the White House, Lewis would welcome the opportunity to meet President-elect Barack Obama.

“I would not pass up the chance to meet any president. It’s a great honor,” he said.

The team spent Tuesday shopping and checking out Georgetown University and decided to skip a spendy professional basketball game Wednesday night in order to study. Today they are “hitting up all the monuments and the Smithsonian (Institution)” before leaving the nation’s capital on a red-eye flight, Lewis said.

Coach Dan Jordan, who has met the president twice, stayed in Fairbanks this time because of a medical issue.

He said the trip will be paid for by UAF, and no funding will come from the NCAA or the White House (because that would require federal tax dollars). If necessary, the team’s Booster Club will chip in, Jordan said.

“There was a little bit of a debate (about whether to accept the invitation),” Jordan said Wednesday from his Patty Center office. “But it’s kind of hard to not reward the kids. To not let them go would kind of be a slap in the face.”

Contact staff writer Matias Saari at 459-7591.