Being First Fan is enough for most presidents
But some commanders in chief have made legislative impact in sports
Alex Brandon / APBarack Obama meets with members of the Tampa Bay Rays, a typical ceremonial role presidents play.
And virtually every U.S. president since the start of the 20th century has relished the role as First Fan.
Teddy Roosevelt, who didn't much care for baseball, admired Ty Cobb enough to invite the Detroit Tigers to the White House. These days, hundreds of athletes are invited each year.
William Howard Taft attended many baseball games, and was the first to throw out a first pitch, a tradition that has humbled many presidents since. He did so at National Park in Washington, and the Senators won 3-0.
Warren Harding played a lot of golf, and frequently posed with great golfers, as well as tennis players such as Bill Tilden.
Dwight Eisenhower, in response to a damning article by Hans Kraus about the declining state of fitness in the country, established the President's Council on Youth Fitness in 1956.
John F. Kennedy was known for all of those family touch football games. But his administration also had an impact on the NFL. He signed the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961, which gave the NFL (and ultimately Major League Baseball) much more antitrust freedom in negotiating television rights. And his administration had an impact on the local team.
"The Washington Redskins were the only team in the NFL that had no black players," Watterson said. "Because the Redskins were playing on park land, the administration put pressure on George Preston Marshall to integrate the team or lose use of the stadium. So that's what happened. Interestingly, he drafted Ernie Davis, and traded him to Cleveland. But he had five black players, and one (Bobby Mitchell) made a huge difference in what had been a forlorn team."
Nixon didn't just design plays, or add a bowling alley to The White House. He and his son-in-law, David, picked a football All-Star team. He also famously took a helicopter to the University of Arkansas, for a 1969 game with Texas, and visited both locker rooms afterward.
"When Joe Paterno and Penn State heard that he was going to Fayetteville, they protested," Watterson said. "Though they were ranked third, they had the longest winning streak in the country."
Jimmy Carter made the most difficult sports-related decision of any modern president. He issued an ultimatum after the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan: Get out by Feb. 20, 1980, or we're boycotting the Moscow Summer Olympics. The Soviets didn't withdraw. The United States did from the Games.
Ronald Reagan was a swimmer, a college football player, a sportscaster and an actor who played George Gipp in Knute Rockne All American and Grover Cleveland Alexander in The Winning Team.
As President, he hosted Old-Timers games on the White House lawn, called a Cubs game with Harry Caray and regularly called championship teams in their champagne-soaked locker rooms. His wife Nancy even threw out the first pitch at the 1988 World Series, on the night that Kirk Gibson hit his game-winning home run.
Clinton played basketball and lacrosse in high school, and his love of the Arkansas Razorbacks hoops team was well known.
"He also tried to mediate the baseball strike of 1994 and 1995... for about a day," Watterson said. "It didn't work out, so he washed his hands of it."
George W. Bush launched his White House Tee Ball Initiative in 2001 to celebrate baseball, and attended many games over the years on the White House lawn. He invited athletes including Tom Brady and Dikembe Mutombo to the State of the Union, and he even mentioned the steroid problem his 2004 address. This was no surprise. Before winning the presidency, Bush was trying (and often failing) to win games as the owner of the Texas Rangers.
So, what will Obama or McCain do? That's hard to say. But this election is already having some effect on the sports world.
Dolphins owner H. Wayne Huizenga told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel recently that he was planning to sell another 45 percent of the team to Stephen Ross before the end of the year, out of concern that Obama would double "or almost double" capital-gains taxes.
"I'd rather give it to charity than to him," said the long-time contributor to Republicans. The Obama campaign disputed the claim, saying that Obama planned to raise them by one-third, from 15 percent to 20 percent.
Ethan J. Skolnick is a sportswriter for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
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