OT: US Presidents and the sports they played

Submitted by UMProud on January 30th, 2019 at 9:35 AM

Patrick Kiger wrote a nice piece on various US presidents and the sports they played.  Some you probably already know of (President Ford, etc) but others may be surprising.

https://www.history.com/news/us-presidents-athletes

Excerpt:

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Dwight Eisenhower

"Long before he achieved acclaim as the leader of the Allied forces who defeated Hitler, Dwight Eisenhower made a name for himself as a halfback and linebacker on the varsity football team at West Point. In November 1912, Eisenhower played in a game against the Carlisle Indian School, whose star was one of the most renowned athletes of all time, Jim Thorpe, who just a few months previously had won the decathlon and pentathlon at the Olympic Games in Stockholm. 

According to Lars Anderson’s book-length account of the game, Eisenhower dreamed of hitting Thorpe hard enough to knock him out of the contest with a hard tackle, and late in the game, took his best shot—only to have Thorpe get up and shake off the hit. Carlyle ended up winning the game, 27-6, and Eisenhower suffered a knee injury that nearly cut short his military career. 

According to Watterson, Eisenhower later become a well-regarded football coach at various Army bases. “He was in great demand,” the sports historian says. “He finally had to stop, because he didn’t want to be known just as a coach.” As President, Eisenhower’s sporting passion was golf, and he actually had a putting green installed on the White House lawn so that he could take a break from working to practice.:

Credit:  History.com, 1/29/2019, Patrick J. Kiger