A Sporting View – Some presidents were jocks

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Contrary to what the White House press corps may have you believe, the favorite pastime of the president is not dodgeball.

Politics, by nature, is a competition, and as follows, many politicians like to take their game to the sporting fields as well. George Washington, the father of our country, was an expert shot and considered to be one of the toughest wrestlers of his era. He was known to eschew church for fox and hound hunts, a nod to his English upbringing.

Abraham Lincoln, the other president we recognize on Presidents Day, was a state champion wrestler and a handball fanatic. This probably was due to the fact that he had very large hands – and at 6-foot-4 he towered over the men of his day. Lincoln kept in shape, and once was said to have chopped wood for Union soldiers during the Civil War. After several minutes of vigorous chopping, he held the axe straight out and didn’t quiver a bit. No soldier, it was said, could duplicate the feat.

The most avid presidential sportsman was Teddy Roosevelt. Roosevelt installed the White House tennis courts and even set up a boxing ring so he could spar with anyone who would take up the challenge. He also studied jujitsu and once tossed the Swiss minister to the floor during a luncheon – no doubt enraged by his neutrality. Now that’s a statesman.

His cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, ravaged by polio, could not participate in sports that he had once loved – particularly golf. But Roosevelt was able to swim and he was an avid yachtsman.

His successor, Harry Truman, was a sportsman of a different kind. Accustomed to dealing with gangsters in downtown Kansas City, Truman was known to be a very good poker player – the type who would drink bourbon with you all night (or morning) long and always keep it together. Truman also was known as being an avid speed walker. In fact, he would often conduct interviews with the press during his morning walks. The press gave up – they couldn’t match his stamina.

Dwight Eisenhower’s love of golf was legendary. Not only did Eisenhower create a sort of pitch and putt area on White House grounds, he scored a hole in one at a California country club just before his death.

John F. Kennedy played football as a youth (so did Gerald Ford, who played center for Michigan in college), and his family was known for their ultra-competitive touch-football games. Still, rumors of Kennedy’s nightlife and his penchant for hanging out with the Rat Pack led many in the press to wonder just what, exactly, he meant when he said he only played “touch.”

Mark Vasto is a veteran sportswriter who lives in New Jersey.

(c) 2018 King Features Synd. Inc.