The occasionally bitter politics of sports teams visiting the White House
A brief history.
First Lady Jill Biden probably thought she was doing a good thing when she announced that she hoped both of the competitors in the NCAA women’s basketball championship game — LSU and Iowa — would come to visit the White House after the season ended.
“I know we’ll have the champions come to the White House, we always do. So, we hope LSU will come,” Jill Biden said Monday. “But, you know, I’m going to tell Joe I think Iowa should come, too, because they played such a good game.”
That idea went over like a lead balloon in LSU circles, with star center Angel Reese mocking the First Lady.
Biden appeared to almost immediately re-think twice her dual invite — as her press secretary took to Twitter to, um, clarify things.
This latest kerfuffle is simply the most recent instance of the supposedly-celebratory visit to the White House for winning sports teams turning political.
In doing research for my book — “Power Players: Sports, Politics and the American Presidency,” which is out two weeks from today(!) — I was surprised to learn that sports teams visiting the White House is a relatively new tradition.
The first team to ever visit the White House was the Washington Senators who came to the mansion under the presidency of Calvin Coolidge in 1923.1
The Washington Post reported on the visit this way:
While President Coolidge has not, perhaps, shown as great a fondness for baseball as some of his predecessors, that he has the welfare of the Nationals at heart was demonstrated yesterday when, at his request, Manager Stanley Harris and the whole team visited the White House. The chief executive not only shook hands with all of the players but told them he was mighty proud of the showing the Nationals have made to date and was confident they would keep up the good work and return to the Capital in October for the world’s series.
But, the idea of sports teams visiting the White House after winning a championship was still a ways off.
In 1963, the Boston Celtics toured the White House — and even got to meet President John F. Kennedy (a Massachusetts native).2
In 1980, the Pittsburgh Steelers became the first Super Bowl champs to visit the White House. And it wasn’t until 1991 that the Pittsburgh Penguins were the first Stanley Cup winners to stop by the White House after a victory.
The father of the modern sports visit is Ronald Reagan, who formalized the process during his two terms in office.
Reagan was a very mild sports fan — he was much more into horseback riding — but he understood one thing clearly: Being associated with winners was a very good thing for a sitting president of the United States.
He brought team after team to the White House — always reveling in the chance to hang out with (and be photographed with) star athletes.
But, Reagan’s lack of fandom occasionally came back to bite him.
In 1985, on the night the Kansas City Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the World Series, Reagan phoned into the Royals clubhouse to congratulate the team. On that call, Reagan mistakenly referred to Dan Quisenberry, the star closer for the Royals, as “Jim.”
When the Royal came to the White House to celebrate later that month, Quisenberry was first in the receiving line — and Reagan was set on fixing his error. “I know I called you Jim,” Reagan told the closer. “That’s ok, Don,” responded Quisenberry — to much laughter from the president. (Don Regan was Reagan’s Treasury Secretary.)
Even during Reagan’s time in office, however, there were dissenter athletes.
Boston Celtics star forward Larry Bird refused to go to the White House following the team’s 1984 title. “If the president wants to see me, he knows where to find me,” Bird said at the time.
Michael Jordan skipped out of the White House celebration of the Chicago Bulls’ 1991 championship.
Green Bay Packers tight end Mark Chmura didn’t attend his team’s White House party with Bill Clinton in 1997. “It doesn’t really say much for society and the morals [Bill Clinton] sets forth for our children,” said Chmura.
And, in 2012, Boston Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas refused to go to the White House due to his unhappiness with the political process. “I believe the federal government has grown out of control,” Thomas said. “Today I exercised my right as a free citizen, and did not visit the White House.”
But, it wasn’t until Donald Trump became president that whole teams decided not to go to the White House as a form of protest.
It started in the fall of 2017 when Golden State Warriors star guard Stephen Curry said that he would not be accompanying his winning team to the White House. He explained his decision this way:
That we don’t stand for basically what our President has — the things that he’s said and the things that he hasn’t said in the right times, that we won’t stand for it.
The following day, Trump disinvited Curry.
When the Warriors came to Washington to play the Wizards the following February, the entire team opted against going to the White House — using the day to instead tour the National Museum of African American History and Culture with a group of local kids.
“The White House is a great honor but there are some other circumstances that we felt uncomfortable going,” said Warriors forward Klay Thompson.
That same year, Trump also disinvited the Philadelphia Eagles following their Super Bowl victory. “The Eagles wanted to send a smaller delegation, but the 1,000 fans planning to attend the event deserve better,” said Trump.
And, in 2019, Trump got into a high-profile standoff with the U.S. Women’s national soccer team.
It started when Megan Rapinoe, the star of the U.S. team, was asked whether the team would go to the White House if it won the World Cup that year. “I’m not going to the fucking White House,” she responded.
Trump, of course, responded. “WIN first before she TALKS,” Trump said of Rapinoe. “Finish the job!”
The U.S. women did just that. And they did not go to the White House to celebrate.
It’s worth noting that not every sports teams turned down the chance to party at the White House after winning a championship during the Trump administration. In 2019, the Clemson football team came to the White House — and were greeted with a fast-food bonanza.
Still, when Jill Biden stepped in it with her dual invitation, she was joining a long line of politicians confounded by the visits of sports teams to the White House. For what seems like it should be a slam dunk (ahem), the visits are surprisingly political — and controversial.
Star center Bill Russell was not at the White House that day. It wasn’t a protest; the Celtics had no idea they would actually get to meet the president, so Russell skipped the trip.
Do a very quick google search about Mark Chmura and the irony of his "stance" about WJC become rather obvious.
Everything has become political these days. It is truly sad that our country is so polarized on anything and everything. Recently lost my dad but he always says he feared for his grandson and any of his children, the world is not in a good place today.