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In 1952, at the Republican convention in Chicago, Senator Richard Nixon happened to see Jackie Robinson, the >rst African American major league baseball player, in the hotel lobby where the California delegation was staying . Upon being introduced to the ballplayer, Nixon said that he heard that Jackie had just hit another home run. “Yes, I had pretty good luck,” Robinson replied, a sparkle in his eyes. Nixon then recalled the >rst time that he had seen the Dodger ballplayer in 1940, when Robinson was playing football for UCLA. He described in detail what he referred to as a perfect play. It was a long pass from Kenny Washington, also black, to Robinson. Catching the ball between three Oregon defenders, Jackie somehow eluded all of them. “When he got over the goal line,” Nixon later recalled, “he just turned around and grinned at them. He had outsmarted all of them.”1 While Eisenhower relaxed with western novels, bridge, and golf, Richard Nixon immersed himself in baseball and football. Ike chose Nixon as his vicepresidential candidate, and the Republican victory gave Nixon an entry into the national sporting arena. In his eight years as vice-president, he addressed sports groups, got to know high-pro>le sports >gures, and even golfed and >shed with Ike. In fact, Nixon’s foray into big-time sports would be a prelude to his presidential play calling, crowning of national championship teams, and dreaming up all-star baseball teams. On top of this, he would use both Air Force One and the television camera to fashion an image of the sports “spectator in chief.” Jackie Robinson was the most notable of Nixon’s early professional sports conquests—and a friendship took shape. In the late 1950s, as Nixon was planning his run for the presidency, the two men would frequently correspond. Though Robinson endorsed Nixon in 1960, he was deeply disillusioned when 17 Richard Nixon Show Me a Good Loser . . . ★ ★★ ★★★★★ ★ ★★ the Republican standard-bearer remained silent when Martin Luther King was jailed in Birmingham. Given Nixon’s reputation for winning at all costs, the question arises: was Nixon genuinely interested in sports >gures like Jackie Robinson or did he only use them for his political advantage? To answer that question, we need to look at the tension between Nixon the struggling athlete and Nixon the overachieving student. If Dick Nixon really cared about sports, his sporting career in high school and college is the place to begin. ★ Cannon Fodder In high school and college, Nixon played scrub football—the C team—and rarely got into a game. What is remarkable is that he played at all. Nixon may have >rst embraced sports because his volatile father, Frank, encouraged it. In high school, he played football, basketball, and track without winning a position on any of the starting teams. He put in long hours of practice. But all the while, he earned scholastic honors, participated in debate, and worked in the family store. Upon graduating from high school, he was awarded a scholarship by the local Harvard Club, based on his credentials as the best all-around student. Sadly for Nixon, he could not a=ord to attend Harvard even with a scholarship. Instead he enrolled at nearby Whittier College so he could live at home, commute to Whittier, and continue to work in the family store. Once again, he took on a backbreaking schedule. He went out for football and, except for the barebones freshman team, failed to make >rst or second string. Nevertheless, he scrimmaged with the varsity for three years, serving as a “punching bag” for the starting team in practice and seldom getting into a game. As a 165-pound tackle, Nixon was small, slow, and awkward. His greatest strength was his tenacity. “He wasn’t cut out to play the sport,” a teammate said. “Nixon and I were cannon fodder. . . . I’ll say that for Nixon. He had guts.” Other teammates wondered why he played at all.2 Later, a high school teammate tried to explain it in a folksy aphorism. Football strengthened his tenaciousness, “like the old saying, ‘stick to it, like a pup to a root.’” Nixon was temperamentally incapable of quitting, no matter how much punishment he took.3 Next to his father, Nixon most admired his college coach, Wallace Newman, and learned more from him than from his teachers and professors. A tall man who held himself “ramrod straight,” Newman had won All-American honors 230 ★ in the...

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