Another President With “Game”?

May 14, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Nixon family, Nixon in the News, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

Many articles about President Obama have suggested that he is the first President to display any considerable skill as a basketball player. (Herbert Hoover used to toss a six-pound medicine ball over a volleyball net, but Hooverball’s another game altogether.)

But such may not be the case, as recounted in Alex Pappas’s article about President Nixon’s grandson, GOP congressional candidate Chris Cox. Recalling the time he spent with his grandfather, he says:

“I remember we went to lots of baseball games together and played basketball together. I tell you, he had a mean shot from the top of the key.”

And from a story by the Associated Press:

The aspiring politician says his grandfather, who mostly talked with him about the Mets and Giants before his death in 1994, when Cox was 15, did provide advice that may come in handy between now and November.

“What he would tell me is the only way you lose is if you stay on the floor,” Cox said. “You’re going to get knocked down time and time again, but keep coming back. And keep trying. The only time you lose is when you stop trying.”

Another View of RN At The 1959 NFL Championship Game

January 23, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under News media, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 3 Comments 

Last month I posted about a Baltimore Sun article reminiscing about the 1959 NFL championship game, in which the Baltimore Colts, playing on their home turf at Memorial Stadium, bested the New York Giants 31-16, one year after the Colts’s spectacular defeat of the Giants in New York in overtime. The article noted the presence of Vice President Nixon at the game and a spectator’s suggestion that a ticket comprising Colts quarterback Johnny Unitas and RN would be a great bet for 1960.

Here’s a column that appeared a week or so after the game in the San Francisco Chronicle by the late Charles McCabe, in which he remarks:

I knew the Veep when he was an inconspicuous Congressman from Whittier, and I was an inconspicuous Washington correspondent. In those days, before he hitched his wagon to the pumpkin in the Alger Hiss case, the Veep was an earnest, humorless freshman Congressman. He was known in the House Press Gallery as “The Boy Scout.”

He was a great talker, even then. I recall him talking on many subjects, but never sports. The last time I saw him was last summer, when he visited San Francisco. He was a changed man. His first question on getting off his plane, was: “Are the Senators still in the cellar?” And the funny thing is, he really knows sports. Funnier yet, he is one of those rare birds who is equally nuts and equally informed about baseball and football.

It is remarkable, is it not, the way public life enlarges a man’s horizons?

First Duffer

January 9, 2010 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports, U.S. History, Vietnam | Leave a Comment 

America learned early about President Obama’s love affair with basketball, a romance so intense that during the 2008 campaign reports kept leaking out of his camp that if elected, he planned to convert the one-lane bowling alley installed by President Nixon in the White House basement into an indoor court – a notion quickly kiboshed when it became clear that many devotees of the ball-and-pins might vote for Sen. John McCain rather than let this happen.

But although Obama has been known to dribble and dunk whenever his schedule allows, it was a foregone conclusion that sooner or later he had to come to grips with the real sport of Presidents, and so over the holidays reports came out of his Hawaii hideaway that he had been seen on the local links, was taking golf lessons, and dutifully attempting to find out just how huge his handicap is going to be.

The 44th President undertakes the sport with a distinct disadvantage: he is the first President since, perhaps, William Howard Taft who never had the chance to play with Bob Hope. And so it is that Peter Corrigan of the London Independent devotes a column to discussing Obama’s taking up golf and his place in the Presidential traditions connected with tees, hooks, and double eagles. (Not to mention the Vice-Presidential tradition, established by Spiro Agnew and so often mentioned by Hope and Johnny Carson, of beaned spectators.)

Nearly every golfer under the age of ninety can quote Lacey Davenport’s line from Caddyshack, “Nixon plays golf” – in a film made, as it happens, a year after RN broke 80 on a California course and then gave up the game for good. Quite a bit could be written about Nixon’s quarter-century on the greens, off and on, before that happened, but Corrigan focuses on the time in the early 1970s when Arnold Palmer was invited to San Clemente and there found the President and, perhaps inevitably, Bob Hope. The journalist continues:

[Palmer] was asked his opinion about how the US should end the Vietnam war. He muttered something about not pussyfooting about and “going for the green”. I’m not sure if they bombed Cambodia as a result, but as valuable as a pro’s advice is when it comes to your swing it shouldn’t carry weight in real life.

Collinson’s account is not quite true to the record. It’s hard to picture the forthright Artie “muttering” any advice, and the account that Palmer gave in the 2000 book (as quoted from his own website) is as follows:

Perhaps Palmer’s best memory of the [Bob Hope] tournament has nothing to do with what happened on the course. It was at the Hope in the early 1970s that Palmer was summoned to a mini-summit with President Richard M. Nixon. A U.S. Marine helicopter picked up Bob Hope, Palmer and their spouses and flew them over the mountains to Nixon’s Western White House at San Clemente north of San Diego.

On hand with Nixon was Vice President Gerald Ford, foreign policy adviser Henry Kissinger and a host of top level national security officials. “It seemed the president wanted to pick our brains, of all things, about how to end the war in Vietnam,” Palmer told author James Dodson in the Palmer biography, A Golfer’s Life. When Palmer’s turn came to express his opinion, Palmer sheepishly told the Commander-in-Chief to “get this thing over as quickly as possible, for everyone’s sake. I mean, why not go for the green?”

The golf pro’s advice got a round of laughs from people who were unaccustomed to the levity.

Levity aside, at the end of 1972, when it looked like North Vietnam would balk at signing the Paris peace accords, President Nixon went ahead and sent bombers to Hanoi, in that sense “going for the green.” And that brought Le Duc Tho’s negotiators back to the table, and thus the war ended for the United States. Palmer’s meeting with the President also happened well after the Cambodia bombing. The lesson here is that it pays, especially in this age of Google and Books.Google, to check the sources.

A Dream Ticket

December 20, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 2 Comments 

Almost every pro football fan over the age of, say, 50 – and a good number younger than that – knows about the NFL championship game in Yankee Stadium on December 28, 1958, in which the seemingly invincible New York Giants, led by Frank Gifford, was upset by Johnny Unitas and the Baltimore Colts, when the teams went into a sudden-death overtime for the first time in the league’s history, and the Colts emerged with a 23-17 win.

Much less well remembered is the rematch a year later, when the Colts, after trailing 9-7, scored 24 points in the fourth quarter to demolish the Giants 31-16. That game was played before a roaring crowd at Memorial Stadium in Baltimore, still the only time an NFL championship has been decided in that city. But, as Mike Klingaman of the Baltimore Sun notes, even some of those who played for the Colts that day have trouble remembering the game:

“Don’t remember it at all,” said Hall of Famer Lenny Moore, who caught a 60-yard touchdown pass in the 31-16 victory that day. “Man, oh man. Can you believe that? I don’t remember me.”

But one moment at the game’s end was noted by the sportswriters of the day:

Vice President Richard M. Nixon stopped in to slap some backs and proclaim the game “the best I have ever seen.”

As Nixon left, a fan shouted, “We’ll give you a ticket [for the 1960 election] — Unitas and Nixon.”

“If you can do that,” the vice president replied, “we’ll let Unitas call the signals.”

The fan’s idea of a dream ticket brings to mind David Maraniss’s biography of legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi, When Pride Still Mattered. There, Maraniss tells how Richard Nixon, looking over vice-presidential possibilities before the 1968 Republican convention in Miami, started to wonder if Lombardi might be a good choice for a running-mate.

Future Attorney General John Mitchell was asked to look into Lombardi’s background, and brought back the disappointing news that although the coach’s wife Marie was a Republican and a keen fan of RN, Vince himself was a lifelong Democrat who recently had supported Sen. Robert F. Kennedy in his tragic bid for his party’s nomination. (Indeed, after Lombardi left the Packers in January 1968, Kennedy phoned him and asked: “Would you come and be my coach?”)

Johnny Unitas never did seek political office, but, until his death in 2002, was the uncrowned king of Baltimore.

Nashua ‘68: What A Short Strange Trip It Was

December 11, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

The #1 Fan in the 1950s: Vice President Nixon tosses a ball around in his Capitol Office.

Several recent TNN posts (here, here, and here) have presented RN as a serious football fan.  In fact, that puts the case mildly; he was the kind of enthusiast who puts the “fan” in “fanatic.”

But, unlike many who mostly talk the talk, RN could really walk the walk — a fact discovered and recorded by no less an authority (and no less rabid a Nixon critic) than the uber-Gonzo journalist and Rolling Stone National Correspondent Dr. Hunter S. Thompson.

In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 —his bizarre and superb account of the 1972 presidential campaign— there are few moments more superbly bizarre than the limo ride with RN that he recalled and recounted from the eve of the New Hampshire primary during the 1968 presidential campaign.

For Thompson, of course, this was, literally, a case of giving the devil his due.  But that makes his admiration all the more interesting and impressive.  And when Dr. Hunter S. Thompson describes something as “one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done,” attention really must be paid.

Hunter S. Thompson

“Weird Memories of ‘68: A Private Conversation with Richard Nixon” from Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ‘72 (pp. 58-61)

It was a big yellow sedan with a civvy-clothes cop at the wheel.  Sitting next to the cop, up front, were two of Nixon’s top speechwriters: Ray Price and Pat Buchannan [sic].

There were only two of us in back: just me and Richard Nixon, and we were talking football in a very serious way.  It was late —almost midnight then, too— and the cop was holding the beg Merc at exactly sixty-five as we hissed along the highway for more than an hour between some American Legion hall in a small town somewhere near Nashua where Nixon had just made a speech, to the airport up in Manchester where a Lear Jet was waiting to whisk the candidate and his brain-trust off to Key Biscayne for a Think Session.

It was a very weird trip; probably one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done, and especially weird because both Nixon and I enjoyed it.  We had a good talk, and when we got to the airport, I stood around the Lear Jet with Dick and the others, chatting in a very relaxed way about how successful his swing through New Hampshire had been…and as he climbed into the plane it seemed only natural to thank him for the ride and shake hands….

But suddenly I was seized from behind and jerked away from the plane.  Good God, I thought as I reeled backwards, Here We Go … “Watch out!” somebody was shouting.  “Get the cigarette!”  A hand lashed out of the darkness to snatch the cigarette out of my mouth, then other hands kept me from falling and I recognized the voice of Nick Ruwe, Nixon’s chief advance man for New Hampshire, saying, “God damnit, Hunter, you almost blew up the plane!”

I shrugged.  He was right.  I’d been leaning over the fuel tank with a burning butt in my mouth.  Nixon smiled and reached out to shake hands again, while Ruwe muttered darkly and the others stared down at the asphalt.

The plane took off and I rode back to the Holiday Inn with Nick Ruwe.  We laughed about the cigarette scare, but he was still brooding.  “What worries me,” he said, “is that nobody else noticed it.  Christ, those guys get paid to protect the boss….”

“Very bad show,” I said, “especially when you remember that I did about three king-size Marlboros while we were standing there.  Hell, I was flicking the butts away, lighting new ones …. You people are lucky I’m a sane, responsible journalist; otherwise I might have hurled my flaming Zippo into the fuel tank.”

“Not you,” he said.  “egomaniacs don’t do that kind of thing.”  He smiled.  “You wouldn’t do anything you couldn’t live to write about, would you?”

“You’re probably right, I said.  “Kamikaze is not my style.  I much prefer subtleties, the low-key approach — because I am, after all, a professional.”

“We know.  That’s why you’re along.”

The #1 Fan in the 1960s: presidential candidate Nixon, just a few months after his late night New Hampshire encounter with Hunter Thompson, was at the LA Coliseum (with campaign manager John Mitchell) attending a preseason game between the Rams and the Chiefs.

Actually the reason was very different: I was the only one in the press corps that evening who claimed to be as seriously addicted to pro football as Nixon himself.  I was also the only out-front openly hostile Peace Freak; the only one wearing old Levis and a ski jacket, the only one (no, there was one other) who’d smoked grass on Nixon’s big Greyhound press bus, and certainly the only one who habitually referred to the candidate as “the Dingbat.”

So I still had to credit the bastard for having the balls to choose me — out of the fifteen or twenty straight/heavy press types who’d been pleading for two or three weeks for even a five-minute interview— as the one who should share the back seat with him on this Final Ride through New Hampshire.

But there was, of course, a catch.  I had to agree to talk about nothing except football.  ”We want the Boss to relax,” Ray Price told me, “but he can’t relax if you start yelling about Vietnam, race riots or drugs.  He wants to ride with somebody who can talk football.”  He cast a baleful eye at the dozen or so reporters waiting to board the press bus, then shook his head sadly.  “I checked around,” he said. “But the others are hopeless — so I guess you’re it.”

“Wonderful,” I said.  “Let’s do it.”

We had a fine time.  I enjoyed it — which put me a bit off balance, because I’d figured Nixon didn’t know any more about football than he did about ending the war in Vietnam.  He had made a lot of allusions to things like “end runs” and “power sweeps” on the stump but it never occurred to me that he actually knew anything more about football than he knew about the Grateful Dead.

But I was wrong.  Whatever else might be said about Nixon —and there is still serious doubt in my mind that he could pass for Human— he is a goddamn stone fanatic on every fact of pro football.  At one point in our conversation, when I was feeling a bit pressed for leverage, I mentioned a down & out pass —in the waning moments of the 1967 Super Bowl mismatch between Green Bay and Oakland — to an obscure, second-string Oakland receiver named Bill Miller that had stuck in my mind because of its pinpoint style & precision.

He hesitated for a moment, lost in thought, then he whacked me on the thigh & laughed: “That’s right, by God!  The Miami boy!”

I was stunned.  He not only remembered the play, but he knew where Miller had played in college.

Those who knew RN will know that that Miller call that so amazed Dr. Thompson actually bordered on being a no-brainer for RN, whose memory for games and players and statistics was as vivid as it was phenomenal.

The #1 Fan in the 1970s: President Nixon greets coach George Allen and his family in the Rose Garden after the Redskins won the NFC championship.

12.9.69

December 9, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Pat Nixon, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Forty years ago today, on 9 December 1969, President Nixon flew to New York to receive the National Football Foundation’s Gold Medal and to deliver a speech that was truly a labor of love.

He was the guest of honor at the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame Dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel.  The toastmaster was ABC sportscaster Chris Schenkel, with whom RN had bantered on national TV during the halftime at the Texas-Arkansas game three days before.

9 December 1969: RN at the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame Dinner:

This speech —on a congenial topic and to be delivered to a friendly and receptive audience in the wake of his phenomenally successful 3 November speech— was mostly written by RN himself.  It contains many spontaneous observations and recollections, and it provides a real insight into the man and the President.

Before RN rose to speak, Archibald MacLeish, the Harvard professor, poet, playwright, Librarian of Congress, and erstwhile Yale football terror, was awarded the Foundation’s Distinguished American Award.  He said, “Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man’s life if he has the weight and cares about the words.”

RN opened with a graceful reference to McLeish’s remarks, in which he had quoted former Secretary of State Dean Acheson.  This managed to defang one critic (who was sitting on the stage) while saluting another. Acheson, who had been the focus of some of RN’s strongest campaign rhetoric during late ’40s and early ’50s, had been among RN’s strongest supporters after the “silent majority” speech delivered just five weeks before.   RN also worked in a reference to the Apollo XI moon landing in July.

I was trying to think of something that would appropriately describe how I feel in accepting this award. I would have to be less than candid if I were not to say that because of the offices I have held I have received many awards.

But I think Archibald MacLeish, in that perfectly eloquent tribute to football, quoting Secretary of State Dean Acheson, put it very well. He said, “The honors you don’t deserve are the ones you are most grateful to receive.”

I simply want to set the record straight with regard to my football qualifications. This is a candid, open administration. We believe in telling the truth about football and everything.

I can only say that as far as this award is concerned, that it is certainly a small step for the National Football Foundation and a small step for football, but it is a giant leap for a man who never even made the team at Whittier.

RN opened with a tip of the hat to his former nemesis, but post-3-November Vietnam supporter, Secretary of State Dean Acheson.

Having raised the subject of his college gridiron career, he embarked on some charming self-deprecation:

I have looked around that wall, Whittier is not up there, I can assure you. I didn’t hear the Whittier song, either, a moment ago. In fact, only the coach from Loyola knows where Whittier is. We used to play Loyola.

I got into a game once when we were so far behind it didn’t matter. I even got into one against Southern Cal once when we were so far behind it didn’t matter.

Now just to tell you a little about Whittier because I want the record to be straight: It is a school with very high academic standing. We had a very remarkable coach.

I pointed out in my acceptance address in Miami that one of the men who influenced me most in my life was my coach and I think that could be true of many public men.

My coach was an American Indian, Chief Newman. He was a perfectly remarkable man and a great leader. I learned more from him about life really than I did about football, but a little about football.

One of the reasons, I guess, he didn’t put me in was because I didn’t know the plays. Now there was a good reason for that. It wasn’t because I wasn’t smart enough. I knew the enemy’s plays.. I played them all week long. Believe me, nobody in the Southern California Conference knew Occidental’s or Pomona’s or Redlands’ or Cal Tech’s or Loyola’s plays better than I did, because I was on that side.

I learned a lot sitting by the coach on the bench–learned about football and learned about life.

In his speech, RN saluted the legendary Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson —who had been named to the Football Hall of Fame—  whom he had invited onto the White House staff as a Special Assistant to the President.

RN wasn’t kidding when he said —as he did many times— that he would have enjoyed being a sports writer.  He put it right out front again in the first of several remarkably detailed (and mostly completely accurate) reminiscences in this speech:

Among all of the people who have been honored tonight, let me just say a good word about sports writers. After all, I must say that this is not an unselfish statement, most sports writers become political writers in the end–”Scotty” Reston, Bob Considine, Bill Henry. So I am just planning for the future.

But, in any event, thinking of sports writers for the moment, they have made football live before the days of television and even now for many who never got to the games.

My first recollection of big-time college football was Ernie Nevers against Notre Dame in 1925–I see Ernie Nevers here. And I sat in the stands with Father Hesburgh [President of Notre Dame] when Southern Cal played and lost to Notre Dame, and I know the great spirit between those two schools. But I remember that game. I remember the score. I think it was 25 to 10, or four touchdowns to a touchdown and a field goal, and I remember that the sports writers, Bill Henry of the Los Angeles Times, and others were writing about the game, wrote about one play where Nevers went through the line close to the goal and there was a dispute as to, whether he went over and was pushed back.

Stanford All-American Ernie Nevers played in the 1925 Rose Bowl against Notre Dame.  He rushed for 114 yards — more than all the Four Horsemen combined — and was named Player of the Game.

Characteristically, RN remembered the great players as well as the winners:

Then my memory goes on, just to share them with you, and interestingly enough I remember performances by men who lost as well as those who won. That is rather natural, I am sure you can understand.

The first Rose Bowl game I saw was between one of the great Howard Jones’ teams of the early thirties and Jock Sutherland’s Pitt team. Pitt was overmanned. They had a fine quarterback in Warren Heller, a good passer. And Howard Jones had a team that beat them 35 to 0.

But my memories of that team were not of the awesome power of Howard Jones’ team moving down with the unbalanced single wing going down, down, down the field and scoring again and again with that tremendous blocking, but of two very gallant Pittsburgh ends, Skaladany and Dailey.

For the first half, I remember they plowed into that awesome USC interference and knocked it down time and time again and held the score down. The game was lost, but I remember right to the last they were in there fighting and that spirit stayed with me as a memory; and the years go on.

RN’s first Rose Bowl: 2 January 1933.  Although the game was a 35-0 USC victory, thirty-six years later RN remembered the spectacular playing of Pitt ends Ted Dailey and Joe Skaladany (above).

RN remembered another Rose Bowl — 1939’s — in which, as a Duke alum, he had a stake.  His stroll down memory lane ended with a slight detour — clearly taken for dramatic purposes; although his date for the game was Thelma Ryan, he had already met her at the Whittier Community Players.

I think of another game, Southern Cal and Duke, 1938 [sic]. I had attended Duke University for law school, and I remember that Duke came there undefeated, untied, unscored upon. The score was 3 to 0 going into the last few minutes of the game. So out came a fourth-string quarterback, not a third-string, Doyle Nave, and he threw passes as they throw them today, one after another, to Al Kreuger, an end from Antelope Valley, California. And finally Southern California scored. It was 7 to 3.

I must say that I was terribly disappointed, of course, but the woman who was to be my future wife went to Southern Cal and that is how it all worked out. We met at that game.

Shutting down the hitherto undefeated Blue Devils: “Antelope” Al Krueger catches the the historic pass well remembered by RN.

Although RN was such a vociferous fan that he shouted himself hoarse at Duke games, that isn’t him standing — but he and the future PN (a former Trojan) were in this crowd of Duke supporters at the Rose Bowl on 1 January 1939.

After some more reminiscences —of Woody Hayes’ Buckeyes— RN reached his peroration:

But now, one serious moment. Archibald MacLeish did say what I wish I could have written about what football means to this country, what it means to me as an individual, what it means to me as one who is serving as President of the United States. I can only tell you that in the Cabinet Room there are the pictures of three men whom I consider to be great Presidents: President Eisenhower, president Woodrow Wilson, President Theodore Roosevelt. There were other great ones, but these three in this century, I consider to be among the great presidents.

All of them had one thing in common. They were very different men: Eisenhower, the great general; Theodore Roosevelt, the tremendous extrovert, explorer, writer, one of the most talented men of our time in so many fields; Woodrow Wilson, probably the greatest scholar who has ever occupied the Presidency, a man with the biggest vocabulary of any President in our history, in case you want to put it down in your memory book•

But each of them had a passion for football. Woodrow Wilson, when he taught at Wesleyan [Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn.] used to talk about the spirit of football, and later on when he was president of Princeton, he insisted on scholarship, but he recognized and tried to encourage football.

T. R. was dictating a speech one day, a very important one. He got a call telling of two of his sons participating in a prep school game which they had won. He dropped the speech and ran shouting for joy to his wife and said, “They won, they won!”

I remember President Eisenhower talking to me after his heart attack. He said one of the things he hated to give up was that the doctor said he should not listen to those football games because he got too excited and became too involved.

What does this mean, this common interest in football of Presidents, of leaders, of people generally? It means a competitive spirit. It means, also, to me, the ability and the determination to be able to lose and then come back and try again, to sit on the bench and then come back• It means basically the character, the drive, the pride, the teamwork, the feeling of being in a cause bigger than yourself.

All of these great factors are essential if a nation is to maintain character and greatness for that nation. So, in the 100th year of football, as we approach the 200th year of the United States, remember that our great assets are not our military strength or our economic wealth, but the character of our young people, and I am glad that America’s young people produce the kind of men that we have in American football today.

He concluded with a wrap-up of the ‘69 season-to-date, illuminated by an unexpected example from a very different sport:

I close on a note that will tell you why I think Texas deserved to be Number 1. It was not because they scored the second touchdown, but it was because after the first touchdown when they were ahead [sic] 14 to 0, the coach sent in a play. They executed the play and they went for two. When they went for two and the score was 18 [8] to 14, they moved the momentum in their direction. They were not sure to win because Arkansas still had a lot of fight left and I remember that great Arkansas drive in those last few minutes. But Texas, by that very act, demonstrated the qualities of a champion, the qualities to come back when they were behind and then when they could have played it safe just to tie, they played to win.

This allows me to tell a favorite anecdote of mine in the world of sports. In another field, one of the great tennis players of all time, of course–the first really big tennis player in terms of the big serve and the rest, in our time–was Bill Tilden.

Bill Tilden

When he was coaching, after he completed his playing years, a young player had won a match in a minor tournament and won it rather well. He came off the court and expected Tilden to say something to him in words of congratulation, and Tilden didn’t.

The player said to him, “What is the matter, I won, didn’t I?” Tilden said, “Yes, you won, but playing that way you will never be a champion, because you played not to lose. You didn’t play to win.”

That is what America needs today. What we need in the spirit of this country and the spirit of our young people is not playing it safe always, not being afraid of defeat—being ready to get into the battle and playing to win, not with the idea of destroying or defeating or hurting anybody else, but with the idea of achieving excellence.

Because Texas demonstrated that day that they were playing to win, they set an example worthy of being Number 1 in the 100th year of college football.

RN warmed the bench at Whittier High School (above) as well as at Whittier College (below).

12.6.69

December 6, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Nixon Administration, Richard Nixon, Sports, U.S. History | 6 Comments 

Be there or be square: Unless you were POTUS you needed one of these on 6 December 1969.

Forty years ago today, RN flew on Air Force One to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and then boarded Marine One for the hop to the parking lot at Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, to watch Darrel Royal’s Texas Longhorns pull out a fourth quarter 15-14 win over Frank Broyles’ Arkansas Razorbacks.   What started out as the “Big Shootout” ended up as “The Game of the Century.”

A newspaper cartoon noted RN’s arrival on Marine One to join the capacity crowd of 44,000 at Razorback Stadium.

When Air Force One touched down at the Fort Smith airport, the President and his VIP passengers were greeted by Arkansas Governor Winthrop Rockefeller.  RN responded:

THE PRESIDENT: Governor Rockefeller and all of the people who are here at the airport at Fort Smith, I want you to know how much I appreciate this very warm welcome. It is warm, at least as far as the welcome is concerned.

I want you to know, too, that, as I come here to this great football game at Fayetteville, that I have to be in somewhat of a nonpartisan position, because on the airplane we brought down some members of the delegation from the State of Arkansas — Senator McClellan, Senator Fulbright, John Paul Hammerschmidt, your own Congressman — but I also brought along some members of the delegation from Texas.  So I have to be in between the two.

All that I know is that we are going to see today, in this 100th anniversary of football, one of the great football games of all time, and both of them I wish could be Number 1. But at the end, whichever is Number I will deserve it, and the Number 2 team will still go to a bowl and be a great team.

We want to also say, clearly apart from football, that as we flew over the airport and I saw the cars parked for, well, actually not just feet nor yards, but miles down the road, and then as I went down this line and shook hands with people and I felt how cold your hands were, and your noses a little red, and the rest, I realized some of you have been here a long time.

I just want you to know how much we appreciate it. To come from Washington, to get this kind of a welcome, in the heart of the country, right here in Arkansas, means a great deal to us.

We are going to take back memories of that welcome.

I want you to know, too, that I did not have the opportunity of visiting Arkansas during the 1968 campaign. This is the first time I have had a chance to visit Arkansas, since becoming President. After this warm welcome, it isn’t going to be the last. I want to come back here.

Now, if I could just close my remarks with one other thought, I realize that this is the beginning of a holiday season. It isn’t going to be much of a holiday season for the Congress. I think we are going to have to stay and work during most of that Christmas season, although I haven’t worked that out yet with the Congressmen and Senators. But I do want you to know, for everybody here, that Mrs. Nixon and I and our two daughters extend our very best wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you. Thank you.

1969 was the hundredth anniversary of college football, and the season was dominated by the Longhorns, the Razorbacks, and the Nittany Lions (whose coach and fans didn’t warm to RN’s Fayetteville excursion, and whose undefeated record was recognized by RN during his post-game locker room remarks).

Richard Nixon Comes To Arkansas: A First Person Account (recalled thirty-nine years later) of RN’s Arrival in Fayetteville Arrival by Jim Stafford, Business Reporter for The Oklahoman

It was cold and rainy on Dec. 6, 1969, when Air Force One emerged from the clouds to land at the Fort Smith, Ark., airport.  I was there, along with about 2,000 of my closest friends to welcome President Richard M. Nixon to Arkansas.

Nixon was on his way to Fayetteville to witness the Texas-Arkansas football game, but had to land about 60 miles south in Fort Smith because the Fayetteville airport runway wasn’t long enough to accommodate his aircraft.

Anyway, I was a sophomore in high school and begged my mom to let me take her car to the airport to see Nixon.  I actually arrived before they opened the gates to the Air National Guard section of the airport about 9 a.m. Nixon’s plane didn’t arrive until about 11, so we had plenty of standing around to do.

A press plane landed about 20 minutes ahead of Nixon’s plane. Reporters came out and struck up some conversation with some of those around me along the rope barriers set up for the occassion.  The Southside High School band was there to play “Hail to the Chief.”

I don’t recall Nixon making any kind of formal speech, but he came down the rope barrier shaking hands during the brief time he was there.  When he got to within about six feet of my spot in line, Arkansas Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller whispered something to him,  which I assumed was about the need to head up to Fayetteville in time for kick-off of the game.

Nixon turned away and started to walk to the waiting helicopter, but several hundred disappointed well wishers let out a collective “awwwww.”  Nixon turned around and came back and shook hands all the way down the line, including mine.  I have pictures! He even took time to shake a few hands of the high school band members.

A couple of things happened that morning that I still clearly recall:

First, a reporter who stepped off the press plane complained of the cold weather and one of the folks waiting with me offered to sell him the stocking cap he was wearing. The reporter took him up on the deal and paid about $10 for the cap. I was impressed with his walking-around money.

Second, a man armed with a Kodak Instamatic climbed up on one of the barrels that held the rope barrier just as Nixon’s plane was pulling onto the tarmac.  A sheriff’s deputy came running over and shouted for the man to get down.  I’ll never forget the guy’s reply after he jumped off.  He said “come the revolution, you are going to get yours.” (Although, I believe the deputy was already out of earshot) We had a counter-culture wannabe in the crowd!

Finally, when I got home my mom told me that a friend of mine called minutes after I left to go to the airport.  His family had tickets to the big game, but his mother decided it was too cold and wet to sit in the stands. So he was calling to offer me the extra ticket.

RICHARD NIXON COST ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO WATCH THE GAME OF THE CENTURY IN PERSON.

I didn’t hold it against him.Almost 40 years later, that day remains one of my fondest memories.

I took this photo of Air Force One sitting on the tarmac in Fort Smith and had not seen the picture for decades. It showed up in my e-mail box Monday morning courtesy of my dad, who obviously ran across it while looking through some old photos.

His only comment: “Do you remember this?”

I certainly do.

The Nation’s #1 Football Fan in his element: RN, flanked on his right by Arkansas congressman  John Paul Hammerschmidt, and Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, and, on his right, by Arkansas Senators John McClellan and J. William Fulbright, and young Texas congressman George H. W. Bush (whose eye was apparently already on the presidency).

During the half time, RN went to the ABC press booth and chatted with sportscasters Chris Schenkel and analyst (and former Oklahoma coach) Bud Wilkinson, whom he had appointed Special Consultant to the President on a wide range of issues.

Wikipedia describes the game and its dramatic finale:

The Longhorns got off to a sloppy start, losing a fumble on the second play from scrimmage and turning the ball over a total of six times. A 1-yard leap into the end zone by Bill Burnett in the first quarter and a 29-yard touchdown reception by Chuck Dicus in the third quarter put the Hogs up 14-0 with 15:00 to play.

James Street scrambled for a touchdown on the first play of the fourth quarter. Longhorns coach Darrell Royal had decided before the game to go for a two-point conversion after the Longhorn’s first touchdown to avoid a tie, and Street dove into the end zone to make it 14-8.

Arkansas quarterback Bill Montgomery next led the Razorbacks on a 73-yard drive down to the Texas 7. On third down, Montgomery was intercepted in the end zone by Danny Lester, Arkansas’ first turnover of the game. A field goal would have likely put the game out of reach for Texas.

Still down 14-8, Texas began a desperate drive for the end zone that appeared to stall with 4:47 remaining when Royal opted for yet another gamble on fourth-and-3 from their own 43-yard line. During a timeout that Texas took before the fateful play, Royal shouted at Street, “Right 53 Veer pass.” The play was a deep pattern throw to the tight end. The play wasn’t in the Texas game plan package. “Are you sure that’s the call you want?” Street said. “Damn right I’m sure!” Royal snapped. Street had noticed Arkansas defenders looking into the Texas huddle, so he fixed his gaze on split end Cotton Speyrer while explaining the play to Randy Peschel, saying “Randy, I’m looking and pointing at Cotton, but I’m talking to you.” Street then hit Peschel on the dramatic play, with Peschel making a difficult catch over his shoulder in double coverage. It not only converted on fourth down, but also gained 44 yards, putting the Longhorns on the Razorbacks 13.

Two plays later Jim Bertelsen ran in for the game-tying touchdown. Donnie Wigginton, the third-string quarterback who was the holder, made a big save on a high snap and Happy Feller booted the extra point for the winning score with 3:58 remaining.

Fayetteville, 6 December, 1969, 4th and 3:  ”Are you sure coach?”  — QB James Street.   ”I called it and I called it long.” — Coach Darrell Royal.

Here are the game highlights:

After the game, RN visited the Longhorn locker room to present the Presidential Plaque.

POTUS amidst the Longhorns:  In the locker room after the game on live TV, RN presented Texas coach Darrell Royal with the presidential plaque on live TV.

THE PRESIDENT. This was one of the great games of all time, without a question. I was up in the booth, the ABC booth, at halftime, and, incidentally, I have got to brag a little. They asked what was going to happen in the second half. I said both teams were going to score, but I thought that what would really determine the second half would be whether Texas had the ability in the fourth quarter to come through. And you did. How do you feel?

MR. ROYAL. I have got to be the happiest guy in America tonight.

THE PRESIDENT. I just want to say this in presenting the plaque: In presenting this plaque, I want to say first that the AP [Associated Press] and the UPI [United Press International] will name Texas Number 1, as we know, after this game. This is a great honor in the 100th year of football.

I also want to say that, having seen this game, what convinced me that Texas deserves that is the fact that you won a tough one. For a team to be behind 14 to o and then not to lose its cool and to go on to win, that proves that you deserve to be Number 1, and that is what you are.

MR. ROYAL. Mr. President, it is a great thrill for us to win the football game, but the big thrill, I know I speak for all of our squad, is for the President of the United States to take time to endorse college football and to honor us with your presence in our locker room. This is a big moment in all of our lives. I am speaking for the coaching staff and all the players.

THE PRESIDENT. I want all of you to know that we didn’t make up the plaque in advance. It doesn’t say what team. I am taking it back to Washington and putting in Texas.

If I could add one thing, Darrell, while we are talking here, I do want to say that Penn State, of course, felt that I was a little premature in suggesting this, so we are going to present a plaque to Penn State as the team in the 100th year with the longest undefeated, untied record. Is that fair enough?

MR. ROYAL. That is fair enough.

Bevo Rex: This cartoon —showing the Texas mascot Bevo with RN— appeared on the front page of The Austin American.

RN also visited with coach Frank Broyles and the players in the Razorbacks’ locker room:

THE PRESIDENT. It is an honor to be here with a great team.

MR. BROYLES. Thank you, sir. We are proud and we feel that way, too.

THE PRESIDENT. I would like to say something to the team, because I know how you feel.

In my field of politics, I have lost some close ones and I have won some close ones. But I want you to know that in the 100th year of football, in the game to prove Which was to be Number 1, we couldn’t have had a greater game. Arkansas was magnificent throughout the game, and Texas, in order to win, had to beat a great team.

On any Saturday, if we were to make a bet, I would say we wouldn’t know which team to choose, whether it would be Arkansas or Texas.

I also want you to know this: I think you can be awfully proud of the way your fans are with you. I have never seen stands so full of life. The whole State was behind you. There was a spirit there about it, Coach, and that means that your team has done something that is really great for this State.

MR. BROYLES. Thank you, sir. We are very proud of our fans. They have had a big part in the success that we have had.

But we are doubly proud that you are a big sports fan and believe in our program across the State. This will mean a lot to football for years to come.

THE PRESIDENT. I know how the fellows feel, being right down there on that 8-yard line, ready to go over, and then losing the game after what they have done. But I do know this, that in that Sugar Bowl, watch out.

BILL FLEMMING [ABC Sports]. Mr. President, this has been, of course, the climax of the centennial year of college football, and we, indeed, are very indebted to you, sir, for not only taking your television set to your dentist so you could watch a college game, but also being here at this final game.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, I wouldn’t have missed it. I am only sorry that both teams couldn’t have won.

Thank you, fellows.

In today’s Austin-American-Statesman —under the headline “Did you think we’d forgotten?“—  the highlights of the game are recalled

In a matchup billed as the “Game of the Century,” this one certainly lived up to the hype, as the old Southwest Conference foes entered the game unbeaten and ranked 1-2 in the Associated Press poll.

The Longhorns trailed 14-0 entering the fourth quarter, but James Street’s score on the first play of the final period helped top-ranked Texas climb back into the game.

The Razorbacks were in position to put the game away after driving to the Longhorns’ 7, but UT cornerback Danny Lester stepped in front of a Bill Montgomery pass in the end zone to keep the score at 14-8. Lester’s play set up the finish that made Street and Darrell Royal household names across the nation.

With his team facing a fourth-and-3 at its 43, Royal called a play that wasn’t even in the Longhorns game plan that week — ‘Right 53 Veer Pass.’

It worked.

Street hit wideout Randy Peschel in double coverage for a 44-yard gain to the Razorback 13.

Two plays later, Jim Bertelsen bulldozed his way into the end zone, and Happy Feller’s point-after was good, giving UT the lead and ultimately the victory.

The Game of the Century made its way to the cover of the next issue of SI.

From The Haldeman Diaries: Saturday, December 6, 1969

P to Arkansas for the Texas game.  All pleased with his plan to present Presidential plaque to winner as number one team in the 100th year of collegiate football.  Great comination of circumstances to make this possible, as final game of season is between number one and number two teams on national TV.  He did a great job and TV covered it thoroughly, the arrival by helicopter, the half-time interview in the press box, the plaque presentation to Texas (15-14), the crowd scene outside the locker room, the consolation visit to the Arkansas locker room.

Great stuff.  Especially at half-time, when P gave thorough analysis of the game so far, and outlok for second half, which proved 100% accurate.  And some really good stuff in the locker rooms, talking to the players.  A real coup with the sports fans.

The post-game locker rooms: RN’s Longhorn visit begins at 2.51.

The game —and the changing nature of college football in the late ’60s— became the subject of a 2002 book by Denver Post sportswriter Terry Frei.

From The Surf To The Turf

November 7, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Military, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 2 Comments 

Today, California Flag, a five-year-old gelding, won the Turf Spring race in Santa Anita’s racetrack. The race is one of several that constitute the Breeders’ Cup, the event that, while not as well known to the general public as the Triple Crown races, is considered by most in the industry to be the biggest event in thoroughbred racing.

California Flag’s victory was especially popular because the horse is based in Murrieta, almost just around the corner from Santa Anita, at the Hi Card Ranch, a very small farm by the standards of the industry, with just three brood mares.

Hi Card is owned by 82-year-old Keith E. Card, who has been involved in breeding and racing for over half a century – first quarterhorses, then thoroughbreds. Card is a Montana native, but mostly raised in Long Beach. Growing up in that city, it was natural that he would join the Navy after he turned seventeen in 1944. An article about Card in the Riverside (California) Press-Enterprise says:

[He]was stationed at Kingsville, Texas. He worked as a go-fer for Richard Nixon, who was the executive officer at the base. Card was eventually assigned to a ship in San Francisco, but Nixon pulled him back to Kingsville. “The closest I got was to walk up the gangplank and salute the officer,” he said.

Lucky for Card that he never went to sea. The Japanese sunk the ship during World War II, and nobody survived the attack. Card likes to say that Nixon saved his life.

Now, a quick check of the Nixon biographies shows that there are no references to his being stationed at the Kingsville Naval Air Station in Texas – but in early 1945, after returning from duty in the Pacific, he did serve as chief administrative, rather than executive, officer at Alameda Naval Air Station in the Bay Area. I’m wondering if the future horseman might have been stationed at Kingsville, then was sent to Alameda and met RN there. Whatever the case may be, it’s good to know another member of the Greatest Generation is keeping active, and successful, in the autumn of his years – and that RN had something to do with that.

50 years On

November 5, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Pat Nixon, Richard Nixon, Sports | 2 Comments 

In November 1959, while on vacation in Southern California, RN played a round of gold with (from left to right) Hillcrest Country Club president Bernard Weinberg, actor Danny Kay, entertainer Danny Thomas, and golf professional Eric Monti.

In the historical section of the Los Angeles Times, Larry Harnisch marks the fiftieth anniversary of the unveiling for plans to build Dodger Stadium at Chavez Ravine.

The Dodgers had been playing at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where they had moved after being tenants of Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, New York two years before.

Harnisch has also discovered an interesting article which describes Vice President Nixon’s five day holiday in Los Angeles.

According to the article, dated November 5, 1959, RN shopped for ties with Mrs. Nixon in Beverly Hills, and struck up a conversation with a store clerk from Yugoslavia on the politics of the Eastern European nation.

“The call it a social democracy, the store clerk said, ‘but it’s really communism.”

“I know it is, it’s a drab, drab,” responded RN.

RN then visited 20th Century Fox Studios where he met with executive producer Buddy Hadler, and later dined at Hillcrest Country Club with club president Bernard Weinberg, Fox Executive Harry Brand, actor Danny Kaye, singer Dean Martin, Judges Edward Brand and Ben Landis, and others. Mrs. Nixon dined with Brand’s wife, Ruth.

Mrs. Nixon dined at the 20th Century studio with Ruth Brand, the wife of studio executive Harry Brand. Israeli actress Elana Aden is pictured in the center.

After lunch, RN played a round of golf with Weinberg, Kaye, entertainer Danny Thomas, and golf professional Eric Monti, scoring 51 on the first nine and 43 on the second half of the course (RN was no stranger to the game, he is among three American presidents — including Eisenhower and Ford — to ever score a hole-in-one).

During the round, RN joked with his companions, and conversed about Russian Premier Nikita Krushschev (who he debated just four months earlier at the American Exhibition in Moscow), and discussed the future of India.

Harnisch also found another news clip from the trip, a story that describes how RN made two young journalists’ day:

Nixon (Masks) In The News

October 17, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | Leave a Comment 

Last week, as the Los Angeles Angels entered the American League playoffs, I wrote about the team’s first foray into the postseason thirty years ago, when former President Nixon was a regular at what was then Anaheim Stadium, and spectators were not allowed to wear Nixon masks at the games.

Now the Angels are locked in mortal battle with the New York Yankees for the AL pennant. It’s hard to say whether the high visibility of RN’s favorite team has been a factor, but, with two weeks yet to go before Halloween, masks featuring his face are showing up again in the news.

Around 2 am on October 1, a student leaving the University of New Mexico library in Albuquerque was confronted by someone wielding a knife and wearing a Nixon mask. The student struck his assailant, then passed out, and when he awoke found he was on the ground, the knife next to him, and the assailant gone. His wallet and other valuables were untouched.

Then last Wednesday in Ridgeland, Wisconsin, a man with a Nixon mask robbed a bank of $1000. Hopefully, the next time my readers hear of the famed mask, it will be on the face of a neighborhood ten-year-old and the only thing being demanded will be candy.

Too Early For Halloween

October 7, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 2 Comments 

Tomorrow night, the Los Angeles Angels go into this year’s first round of the American League playoffs, facing the Boston Red Sox. Mike Shaughnessy of the Boston Globe recalls the days, three decades ago, when the Angels, in their first foray into the AL postseason, had Richard Nixon in the stands to cheer them on:

The president-in-exile’s San Clemente home was only 35 miles from the venue then known as Anaheim Stadium. Nixon was a friend of Angels owner Gene Autry. He represented the conservative values of Orange County. He loved baseball. And he was an Angels season ticket-holder who went to at least 20 games during the 1979 season. He didn’t seem to be bothered that the Angels had a pitcher named Dave (don’t call me David) Frost.

There were no Frost-Nixon interviews when Nixon visited the Angels clubhouse. There was just the sight of Bobby Grich pouring champagne on the former president’s head after the Angels clinched the division in 1979. At home playoff games against the Orioles, Nixon sat behind a banner that read, “Never give up’’.

“He really knew baseball and he really knew the players,’’ said John Moynihan, stadium press box director, who has been with the Angels for 50 seasons. “He’d go into the clubhouse with Mr. Autry and he knew who the players were, even if they weren’t wearing their uniform top. I remember Donnie Moore came over and asked me, ‘How does Mr. Nixon know my name?’ ’’

There were special Nixon Rules at the Big A. Spectators were not allowed to wear Nixon masks.

“You never knew who was behind those masks, so the city passed a rule that you could not wear a Nixon mask into the stadium,’’ said Moynihan.

Reason To Believe

September 26, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Comedy, Entertainment, Humor, Internet, Lifestyle, Sports | Leave a Comment 

Dude Perfect is a collective of six roommates at Texas A+M who have developed what you might call a G-rated family-friendly frat boy version of Jackass.

In their expanding cottage industry, there are no visible tattoos, and nothing is stapled to anything else.  But they manage to retain  a sufficient quota of don’t-try-this-at-home stone craziness to keep the parents worried and the kids engaged.

The question on some of the more than 3 million minds that have viewed the group’s videos —including “the world’s longest basketball shot”—  is whether these dudes are, well, maybe just a tad too perfect.  And the dudes consider it the greatest compliment that their doings are so derring that people aren’t sure they can believe their own eyes.

Here’s the view from the third deck of Kyle Field at College Station:

And here’s the feat viewed from the field:

Based on their other videos, there’s no reason to believe that this one is doctored. (Nor, of course, is there any reason to believe that this one didn’t follow seventeen thousand four hundred and seventy-nine prior unsuccessful attempts at this particular stunt — and what difference would that make if this one is legit?)

The name derives from the moment when Sean, setting up the camera on the railing of Tyler’s backyard deck,  looked thorough the lens and saw his buddy in the center of the frame. “Dude perfect” was his response and the rest is history.

On their impressive website, they introduce themselves this way:

Ultimately, Dude Perfect is a group of college guys that follows Jesus. We didn’t plan on this type of interest in our videos and we’re incredibly grateful. We want to use this platform for something bigger than us.

Right now, that something bigger is the sponsorship of children in Africa through the organization Compassion International.

They started out betting lunches on trick shots in the backyard.  Eventually (“after quite a few free lunches went the bearded guy’s direction”) they decided to make a video and upload it to YouTube.  In the last several months, they’ve broken out with appearances on Good Morning, America (whose computer analysts couldn’t guarantee that the videos are unedited but couldn’t find any edits or figure out how any might have been made) and in Sports Illustrated.

Although they each have definite personalities that emerge in the videos, the ID caption on their website photo reads: “from left to right: this guy, that guy, the bearded one, the tall guy, the next tallest guy, the guy who looks just like the other guy.”

WWNHD?

August 24, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

I’m always hesitant to speculate on What Would Nixon Have Done? — partly because who really knows, and partly because such speculation too easily becomes an exercise in what the speculator wants done.

But I can, unreservedly and without any hesitation or shadow of a doubt, say that Nixon would have loved this — the unassisted triple play by Phillies second baseman Eric Bruntlett that clinched last night’s 9-7 victory over the Mets at Shea Stadium.  There have only been fifteen unassisted triple plays (and the only  one other one that ended a game was back in 1927).   Since there have been sixteen perfect games, this was a moment rarer even than perfection.  RN would certainly have savored the moment; and it isn’t entirely out of the ballpark that he would have been able to summon up from memory the relevant historical stats.

AP described the play:

With runners on first and second in the ninth inning and a run already in, Jeff Francoeur hit a line drive up the middle that appeared headed toward center field for a single. But both runners were stealing on the 2-2 pitch, so Bruntlett was in perfect position as he moved over to cover second base.

He caught the liner easily, stepped on second to double up Luis Castillo and then turned to tag Daniel Murphy for the third out. Murphy tried to backpedal away from Bruntlett, but had nowhere to go.

“Frenchy hit it on the screws,” Murphy said. “It happened so fast there was nothing I could do.”

The Holy Grail

August 16, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Richard Nixon, Sports | Leave a Comment 

The New York Times‘ sports section has a story up about arguably sports’ greatest feat: the hole-in-one.

The Times’ notes that RN was the only President other than the one he served as Vice President for (Dwight Eisenhower, pictured with RN above), and the Vice President (Gerald Ford) who would succeed him, as the only three Oval Office occupants to ever have one.

The “Miracle on Grass”

June 25, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Sports | Leave a Comment 

Landon Donovan and US teammates celebrate the “stunning” 2-0 victory over Spain in Blomfontein.  (AP photo by Antonio Calanni)

George Vecsey reports for The New York Times:

The stunning 2-0 victory by the United States over Spain —the best team in the world— is probably the greatest victory by the men’s national soccer team.

And when you think of it, the victory Wednesday is probably the second-biggest upset by an American team, behind only the 1980 Miracle on Ice by the hockey team over the Soviet Union in the Olympics.

Those Soviets were state-supported professionals, beaten by amateurs from the United States. On the field in South Africa on Wednesday, everybody was a professional, although just about every Spanish player is employed at a higher level than his American counterpart.

This shocking match in the Confederations Cup in Bloemfontein was the equivalent of those one-off thrillers, like Gonzaga or Davidson beating one of the giants of American college basketball.

Annals Of The Obama Administration

June 9, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Annals of the Obama Administration, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

In today’s WaPo, Richard Leiby    “Just the Sport for A Leader Most Driven” describes the President’s Sunday afternoon:

Although far better known as a hoops man, President Obama seems to be morphing into a golf nut these days. He’s hit the course five times since late April — rushing out to the links on Sunday afternoon just 90 minutes after returning to the White House from his overseas trip. The wife and kids were still back in Paris; no time like the present to get in nine holes.

Mr. Obama, who is, apparently, approaching the links with the same oxymoronic intense sangfroid he brings to most of the things he does, is the fifteen of the last eighteen presidents to play golf.

The attraction would seem simple. It’s a great escape; the game demands such attention that nothing else matters. It’s time spent with friends, an unhurried afternoon in loose clothing (shorts seem to be Obama’s preference). Yet nothing is without deeper meaning where the presidency is concerned. The golfer in chief’s approach to the game is subject to analysis in psychological and political contexts.

To some, Obama’s frequent outings reflect a cool self-confidence. “Given all the things that are going on in the world and with the economy,” says sports psychologist Bob Rotella, “you’d think he wouldn’t be caught anywhere near the golf course . . . To some degree it says: ‘I’m not going to worry about what people say about me. I’m going to do my job, and I’m going to play, too.’ ”

Obama’s predecessor said he quit golfing just as the Iraqi insurgency began to escalate in August 2003. “I don’t want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf,” George W. Bush told interviewers in 2008. “I think, you know, playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal.”

Obama, who shoots in the mid-90s by most estimates, seems to be taking every opportunity to improve his game by hitting the courses at Andrews Air Force Base and Fort Belvoir. On Sunday, he enlisted Ben Finkenbinder, a White House press assistant, and Marvin Nicholson, his trip scheduler, who once caddied at Augusta National Golf Club, for the round.

Illinois state Sen. Terry Link, one of Obama’s early golfing buddies, sees a direct connection between the president’s calm, methodical approach to the game and his personality. “He has a competitiveness in him, no doubt about it. But he has a smart competitiveness in him. He does not get to where he’s going to blow his cool,” Link says. “He’s going to have a calculated aggressiveness, and that’s how his life is, too.”

Obama, whose grandfather Stanley Dunham golfed, toyed with the game while in high school in Hawaii. He returned to it in 1997 as an Illinois state senator. He stank. But “he kept his head in the game to improve it,” Link recalls. Hacking away, failing to get frustrated, taking lessons and practicing, Obama lowered his score. His playing is still erratic. His swing knocked his BlackBerry off his belt during one of the rounds he played while on vacation post-election in Hawaii.

Leiby, who acknowledges the preeminence of the New York Times’ Don Van Natta where presidential linksmanship is concerned, characterizes the styles of some previous presidents.

– Clinton: Garrulous on the course, hates to lose, stretches the rules. These traits were well-chronicled by Van Natta in a 2003 Sports Illustrated piece that gave birth to the term “Billigans” for the former president’s unique do-over shots, traditionally known as mulligans.

– Gerald Ford: Caricatured as the Chevy Chase of the links, clumsy, known for wild shots. But it should be noted that when Ford played in a 1995 Bob Hope tournament with Clinton and George H.W. Bush, both former presidents drew spectator blood with their errant drives. Despite his rep, Ford was ranked third by Golf Digest, after Eisenhower.

– Bush 41: Capable, quick, thoughtful. “He may not be the greatest presidential golfer, but he may be the fastest. He’s great to play golf with because he is fast. No fooling around,” says sportswriting legend Dan Jenkins, a friend and golfing buddy of the former prez.

– Bush 43: Unreflective, daring, cocky. He drew criticism early in his presidency for opining on serious world events from the greens. Referring to a suicide bombing in Israel while teeing up in August 2002 at Kennebunkport, Maine, Bush said, “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive.”

RN, who had only taken up the game as Eisenhower’s Vice President, made a hole in one on the second hole at LA’s Bel Air Country Club on 4 September 1961.  Holding the ball and his Spalding five iron for a commemorative photo, he said it was  “the greatest thrill in my life — even better than being elected.”

Judge Sotomayor’s Baseball Ruling: Fair Or Foul?

May 27, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under American Politics, Sports, Supreme Court | Leave a Comment 

On his Punch blog today, ABC News’ Jake Tapper brings baseball maven George Will to the plate regarding Judge Sotomayor and her role in ending the baseball strike.

As White Sox fan and President Barack Obama introduced Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor yesterday he praised her judicial record generally — and in one specific case.

“During her tenure on the district court, she presided over roughly 450 cases,” he said. “One case in particular involved a matter of enormous concern to many Americans, including me: the baseball strike of 1994 and ‘95.”

To laughter, the president said, “in a decision that reportedly took her just 15 minutes to announce — a swiftness much appreciated by baseball fans everywhere — she issued an injunction that helped end the strike.”

“Some say,” the president said, “that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball.”

This was a reference to when then-District Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of the National Labor Relations Board against Major League Baseball’s owners during the MLB players’ strike.

Operating outside negotiations, owners changed the rules on salary arbitration and free agency and hired replacement players. The NLRB sued the owners to stop making those changes. Sotomayor ruled against the owners and players returned to work.

But baseball fanatic, conservative columnist and ABC News contributor George F. Will takes issue with the notion that this was “saving” baseball.

“The president is a gentleman and a scholar and a great ornament to our society, but he’s not a great baseball historian,” Will told us.

“He says that when she ended the baseball impasse that was interrupting play in 1994 and 1995, she saved baseball,” Will says. “Far from it. What she did was overturn in a sense, the essence, the underlies, the essential theory of American labor relations, which is the parties should slug it out because they know best and whoever wins, wins.”

Will says that “in fact, what she did was take sides, took union’s side against the management, and in so-doing, wasted 262 days of negotiations. That, far from saving baseball, consigned baseball to seven more years of an unreformed economic system, which happened to be the seven worst years in terms of competitive balance.”

Sotomayor, Will says, “delayed the restructuring of baseball. So I would say that far from her saving baseball, as the president says, that in fact, baseball thrives now because we got over the damage that her judicial activism did in that strike.”

And….They’re Off!

May 1, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | Leave a Comment 

Tomorrow marks the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby, celebrated around the world (except maybe in England, where they mean something else entirely when they speak of “the Derby”) as the “greatest two minutes in sports.”  Having grown up in the Louisville area, I can assure readers that, no matter what my mood has been in the days before the first weekend of May, my heart always has felt a little lighter and my step has always been a little livelier around this time of the year.

Seven Presidents have visited Churchill Downs for the legendary race.  But, with one exception, these have all been future or former Chief Executives.  Just one incumbent has stood with the Governor of the Bluegrass State when “My Old Kentucky Home” was played, and then watched the colts thunder down the track. That happened forty years ago this Sunday, when Majestic Prince, easily one of the dozen or so finest thoroughbreds never to win the Triple Crown, defeated a field of eight to receive the garland of roses.  The rest of the story comes from the race’s official website, as told by Vance Hanson of the Daily Racing Form:

The Kentucky Derby and the political world became intertwined less than two weeks before the race, when presidential press secretary Ron Ziegler announced that President Richard Nixon, fulfilling a campaign promise made to Kentucky Governor Louie B. Nunn during the previous year’s election, would attend the Derby along with First Lady Pat Nixon. Among those in the presidential entourage of legislators and executives were Mike Mansfield and Everett Dirksen, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate; and Governor and Mrs. Ronald Reagan of California, themselves future occupants of the White  House.

Nixon, a well known sports buff, was no stranger to the racetrack. In 1957, while serving as vice president, he presented the winning trophy to the [owners and trainer] of Bold Ruler following the Preakness Stakes at Pimlico, and had also attended the 1968 Derby as a candidate for the nation’s highest office. It was reported at the time that Nixon’s attendance at the Kentucky Derby was the first by any sitting president at any horse racing event since Rutherford B. Hayes attended the races in Lexington in 1879. While past and future presidents have been present at affairs of the turf before and since the 1969 Kentucky Derby, including more recent editions of the Run for the Roses, Nixon remains the only presiding chief executive to attend America’s most famous horse race.

Nails Fails

April 8, 2009 by Frank Gannon | Filed Under Lifestyle, Sports | Leave a Comment 

 The New York Post reports that Lenny Dykstra, the Mets’ once-colorful All Star outfielder, has turned out to be the Bernie Madoff of the national pastime.

 Lenny Dykstra, the once high-flying former Met turned entrepreneur and self-described Wall Street whiz, is at risk of losing his $18 million California mansion and private jet, according to documents and associates.

“He’s been writing bad checks all over town,” one source said.

The private-equity firm Index Investors filed foreclosure papers March 11 on Dykstra’s sprawling Thousand Oaks estate, which he purchased from hockey legend Wayne Gretzky, records show.

Dykstra, a three-time All-Star whose tough, gritty playing style earned him the nickname Nails, did not return calls or e-mails for comment.

The firm gave Dykstra a $850,000 bridge loan in November to help his struggling The Players Club magazine meet expenses. That loan was secured with his mansion, which has been described as the crown jewel of the exclusive Lake Sherwood Country Club Estates in Southern California, the source said.

But Dykstra allegedly missed making payments, which were supposed to begin in January.

Index Investors declined to comment.

Washington Mutual then filed its own notice of default on his $12 million mortgage on March 18.

Meanwhile, Dykstra’s Gulfstream II was impounded in Cleveland on Feb. 12 after a creditor said the ex-slugger failed to pay $228,000 for interior renovations to it. The work mainly involved the installation of a state-of-the-art entertainment system.

Constant Aviation, which is in possession of the jet, declined to comment.

The former center fielder also is targeted in a dozen lawsuits by ex-employees and creditors who say they’ve been stiffed by him.

I remember having some trepidation about pre-interviewing Lenny Dykstra for his booking on Late Night with David Letterman.  His research file, reflecting the public image, prepared me for a cocky, vulgar, lout.  He turned out to be cocky, vulgar, funny, nicely self-deprecating, and a good guest.  

I hadn’t given a thought to him until last year when I read about “baseball’s most improbable post-career success story” in Ben McGrath’s terrific New Yorker profile “Nails Never Fails.”  The portrait of the cocky, frantic, kinetic dude rang true.  And it appeared that, with The Players Club, Lenny Dkystra he had hit on the great idea of depicting, serving, and servicing, the luxurious niche needs of high-end athletes.  He was lionized by Bryant Gumbel on HBO’s Real Sports, and contributed a stock market column to Jim Cramer’s TheStreet.com blog. 

At the same time, Nails’ new hire Kevin Coughlin was seeing the Dykstra empire from the very different perspective of its notably soft underbelly.  He writes about his experiences in this month’s GQ (“You Think Your Job Sucks? Try Working for Lenny Dykstra“).  

If nothing else, the Dykstra debacle has generated some excellent long form reporting.

In the mean time, the next generation is warming up.  Twenty year old Cutter Dykstra —described by The New York Times as “a brad off the old Nails”— is scouted by one Brewers blog,

Cutter should be one of the most exciting prospects to watch in Milwaukee’s organization in 2009.  He plays with the same high-energy approach that made his father, Lenny Dykstra, famous.  His physical maturation is all but complete, as his 5′11″ frame tempers those projections, yet Cutter could become one of the organizations top young outfield prospects if he takes to center field well.  He has good speed and a powerful arm — as evidenced by his four outfield assists in only 39 games — which leads scouts to believe it is only a matter of time before the young man becomes a solid center fielder.

Bowling For Atonement

March 21, 2009 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under Barack Obama, Entertainment, Presidents, Richard Nixon, Sports | 1 Comment 

The one truly embarrassing moment in President Obama’s sit-down with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show came when Jay asked the Chief Executive if he had followed through on his promise, often articulated on the campaign trail, to replace the bowling lane installed at President Nixon’s request in 1969 with a basketball court. (The comedian was apparently unaware that Obama had announced back in December, after a chorus of dissent from the nation’s bowlers, that he’d decided to keep the lane.)

Obama replied that he’d been practicing his bowling but was still scoring so low that his game was “like the Special Olympics or something.” This lapse in taste quickly resulted in the President apologizing to Tim Shriver, the head of the Special Olympics. And, yesterday, at least one Special Olympian offered to take Obama on at the White House lane, and though the President has counterproposed a basketball game, it appears a sure thing that bowling will be staying in the Executive Mansion.

Last December, the Washington Post’s Marc Fisher half-whimsically suggested that RN’s lane be changed to accomodate duckpin bowling, the century-old variation on the game which originated in either Baltimore or Lowell, Massachusetts, and which is played mainly in areas fifty or sixty miles east or west of I-95 in Maryland and here and there in New England, as well as some parts of southern Quebec. Duckpin uses a much smaller ball than regular bowling, cupped in the hand rather than held, and it could be that the President would find it easier to excel in this sport than in standard bowling.

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