Few U.S. presidents were college football players

The very first former U.S. president to suit up and play college football in 1911 was Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was a demon on the gridiron, playing for the Army Black Knights while attending the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. 

Eisenhower was a two-way star, the premier running back on offense as well as a linebacker on the defensive side. He grew up in Abilene, Kansas, and was nicknamed as the “Kansas Cyclone,” a positive reference to his speed. 

Near the end of his sophomore season in 1912, Eisenhower severely injured his knee in a game against Tufts College of Medford, Mass., and his playing days came to an end.

Dwight Eisenhower was also Army's punter.

Fortunately, West Point chose not to discharge Eisenhower on grounds that he would be physically incapable of military leadership. He graduated in 1915 and became a highly decorated U.S. Army general. 

President Eisenhower said: “I believe that football, perhaps more than any other sport, tends to instill in men the feeling that victory comes through hard work, team play, self-confidence and an enthusiasm that amounts to dedication.”

In the early 1930s, former president Richard Nixon was a backup lineman at Whittier (Calif.) College, a small college named after poet John Greenleaf Whittier. The team was aptly nicknamed the Poets. 

Nixon “was undersized for a tackle, but he was too uncoordinated and slow-footed to play in the backfield,” wrote his biographer Evan Thomas.

Richard Nixon at Whittier

Whittier’s coach Wallace Newman said about Nixon: “If he’d had the physical ability, he’d have been a terror.” 

Former president Ronald Reagan played three years on the varsity at Eureka (Ill.) College. He was known as “Dutch,” and helped anchor the Dukes’ line as right tackle in the early 1930s. Reagan went on to star in motion pictures. “Just win one for the Gipper” was one of Reagan’s most famous lines from his film career. 

While president in 1982, Reagan returned to the Eureka campus for an alumni event. A reporter asked him about the miracle touchdown he scored to “save the game” against Normal (now Illinois State University).

“We were one point ahead, as I remember,” Reagan said. “And there were just seconds to go. I’d been in the entire game, and Normal was passing, throwing bombs all over. So, I decided to charge against my man, and then when I felt it was going to be a pass, duck back into the secondary and see if I could help cover for passes.”

Reagan amped up the dramatics: “I saw everyone sucked over to one side of the field, and this Normal fellow was going down the other side of the field all by himself. I took out after him, and pretty soon, as he was looking back, I knew the ball must be coming. I turned around, went up in the air and got it.”

“But by this time, as I say, having been in the entire game, I knew that there wasn’t anything left in me.” It was a lineman’s dream…intercepting the pass…about 75 yards from the goal line with a clear field down that sideline. But Reagan’s legs gave out; he couldn’t run and was easily tackled to the turf. 

“I told the reporter: ‘That was my touchdown that was never made, my lineman’s dream.’” 

The only U.S. president to earn All-America recognition as a college football player was this man, 

who played at the University of Michigan.

You might say, the these four college football playing U.S. presidents – Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Reagan – all lined up on the right side of the ball (as opposed to the left)…as all were Republicans.