Sports and the American Presidency

Explores the relationship between US presidents, sport and athleticism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries This book presents an overview of the symbiotic relationship between US presidents and some of the nation's most popular pastimes. Starting with Theodore Roosevelt's significant role in linking the presidency with advocacy of - and active participation in - sports, this book traces how occupants of the White House continued to develop these connections in various guises across the following century for both pleasure and political purposes. Split into three thematic sections, the book approaches the topic from different but related angles to create a multidimensional portrait of the evolving relationship among the US presidency, sports and individual athletes, from the dawn of the twentieth century through to the Trump administration. Adam Burns is Head of History and Politics at Bristol Grammar School in the UK. Rivers Gambrell is a research fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at the University of Oxford.