Trumps not a good sport: Chris Cillizza on presidents at play | Books

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From The Big Lebowski to Alice in The Brady Bunch, depictions of bowling abound in American pop culture. The sports real-life adherents include Richard Nixon, who installed a bowling lane at the White House and was known to play between seven and 12 games a night. Characteristically, he plays alone. It’s one of many athletic accounts from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a new book, Power Players: Sports, Politics, and the American Presidency, by longtime political journalist Chris Cillizza.

Bowling solo personified Nixon the loner, Cillizza said. He never played tennis or golf with friends. He enjoyed bowling alone. It is a powerful image, a telling image.

Tricky Dicks’ love of bowling also helped an important voting block: Nixon saw it as the sport of the Silent Majority of white, blue-collar men who made up his base. He knows it well.

A Washington journalist for four decades, most recently for CNN, Cillizza built the book about the sports presidents play, love, watch, and what it tells us about who they are. and how they manage. That’s the germ of the idea, the seed that goes in.

Power Players examines 13 presidents of the modern era, from Dwight Eisenhower to Joe Biden. Some of its narratives are as well-known as Ikes’ extensive golfing, John F Kennedy’s touch football games or Barack Obama’s pickup basketball on the campaign trail. The book explores the lesser-remembered sides of these stories, including a chilling moment in the links for Eisenhower.

While playing golf in Colorado in 1955, he fielded several stressful phone calls from his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. After eating a hamburger with onions and receiving another call from Dulles, Ike felt too angry to continue playing. Chest pains followed that night. The White House initially claimed indigestion but an electrocardiogram found something more serious a heart attack. At the time, there was no 25th amendment that defined the chain of command if a president became incapacitated. Fortunately, Ike did not lose consciousness during the episode.

Golf has been a popular sport for many presidents, as seen in a previous book about White House athletics, First Off the Tee by Don Van Natta Jr, interviewed by Cillizza. However, the list of presidential hobbies is long and diverse, from Nixons bowling to Jimmy Carters fishing to George HW Bushs horseshoes. Yes, horseshoes. In addition to Bush’s well-known prowess on the Yale University baseball team, he was a good horseshoes player who founded his own White House league, with a commissioner and tournaments. The White House permanent staff fielded teams; Queen Elizabeth II even presented Bush with a quartet of silver horseshoes.

In the greatest-presidential-athlete debate, Cillizza lands in Gerald Fords corner.

No debate, he’s the best athlete ever, I think, included [George HW] Bush a distant second, among modern presidents.

Ford sometimes lives up to the bumbling stereotype made famous by Chevy Chase and Bob Hope by accidentally hitting people with golf balls. However he was an All-American center on the national-champion University of Michigan football team and received contract offers from two NFL squads, the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.

In addition to the sports presidents play, Cillizzas’ book examines how presidents use sports to connect with the public.

Calling sports a common language that many, many Americans use, Cillizza said: I think politicians are forever trying to get to know the common man that I think sports is a way in that world for many presidents.

There’s the practice of inviting championship teams to the White House, which Cillizza traced back to Ronald Reagan, although the opportunities date back decades. Although not much of a sports fan, Reagan came from a sports radio background, played the legendary Gipper in the movie Knute Rockne, All American and understood the importance of being around winners, Cillizza said.

Richard Nixon was indulging in a favorite pastime. Photo: Bettmann Archive

There’s also the tradition of presidential first pitches at baseball games, arguably the most iconic thrown by George W Bush at Yankee Stadium in the 2001 World Series, after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Cillizza cites pedigree of baseball by Dubyas as president of the Texas Rangers, and he reportedly considered becoming the commissioner of Major League Baseball.

Of the presidents surveyed, Cillizza said George HW Bush had the most sportsmanship, thanks to early lessons about fair play from his mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, a strong tennis player herself. The least sportsmanlike, according to the author? Lyndon Johnson and Donald Trump. Cillizza cited an account of Trumps time on the Fordham University squash team. After missing the Naval Academy, he drove to a department store and bought golf equipment. He and his teammates vented their frustration by hitting golf balls off a bluff on the Chesapeake Bay, then drove off, sans club.

That’s Trump, in many ways, Cillizza said. He’s not a good sport to be kind.

The author documents similar behavior throughout Trump’s career, including bombastic performances in World Wrestling Entertainment storylines and an entire recent book about his alleged golf cheating, as well also a recent news item about the former president coming to Ireland to visit one of his courses.

He drove up, and said Joe Biden would never do it, Cillizza recalled. It climbs 280 feet down the middle of the fairway. He talks about his virility, his health, through the lens of sports.

Not long ago, two former presidents from rival parties came together as part of a golf foursome. George HW Bush joins the man who beat him in 1992 Bill Clinton towards an unlikely friendship. Rounding out the four are broadcasting legend Jim Nantz and NFL superstar Tom Brady.

It’s remarkable what sports can do to bring presidents together, Cillizza said. In this day and age, it’s hard to consider. I don’t think Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be playing golf together anytime soon.

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