Editor’s Note: Jeff Pearlman is the author of The Last Folk Hero: The Life and Myth of Bo Jackson. You can read his writing at Pearlman.substack.com. The views expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.
The University of Georgia’s football team has turned down an invitation to meet with President Joe Biden at the White House, and people are crazy mad. Or they’re very happy.
They’re happy if they think Joe Biden is the second coming of Satan. If they think Joe Biden is ruining America. Or if they just hit up the ole MAGA shop for a new red ball cap and matching Rambo Trump flag.
They’re mad if they think Joe Biden is bringing America back. Or if they think the current administration is keeping democracy alive. Or if they find it disrespectful of the office. This stuff is all the talk on social media. “Bravo, Bulldogs!” “Damn you, Bulldogs!”
The Athens Banner-Herald reported that the team, in a statement on Tuesday, cited a scheduling conflict.
“Unfortunately, the date suggested is not feasible given the student-athlete calendar and time of year. However, we are appreciative of the invitation and look forward to other opportunities for Georgia teams moving forward,” read the statement published by the Banner-Herald.
The statement gave no indication of what prevented them from being able to travel to Washington, although Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart insisted this week that there was “nothing political” in the decision.
Georgia players and fans have criticized the White House for not inviting the Bulldogs to meet with the president last year, when the team won the first of two successive national championships. (Covid protocols kept the White House from extending an invitation last year.)
In February, defensive lineman Warren Brinson expressed displeasure on Twitter that the team still had not received a White House invitation, a month after winning their second successive national championship.
“No invite to the White House is crazy,” Brinson wrote, tagging Biden’s @POTUS handle in the tweet. According to People Magazine, Georgia lawmakers petitioned the President weeks ago about extending an invitation to the team, which was sent by the White House earlier this week.
The truth is, the whole sports-team-visits-White House ritual should probably be retired. Sadly, we – the people – can no longer handle it. We are too immature and too divided.
Once upon a time, winning a title and meeting with the president meant something. The first time it happened was way back on Sept. 28, 1925, when the American League-champion Washington Senators made the short trek from Griffith Stadium to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to hang with Calvin Coolidge.
Though hardly a baseball fan, the 30th American president walked the line, shaking hands with each man, then posing for a photo. There was no media pile-on ripping Senator stars Walter Johnson and Goose Goslin for hanging with the Republican president. Instead, they simply reported and wrote up the story. They did their job, without the overt political biases we now slather ourselves in.
Some four decades later, the Boston Celtics became the first NBA championship team to hit up the White House following a title, and every single player gladly sat in the presence of John F. Kennedy, sipping tea and coffee, munching on snacks, chatting about Bill Russell’s defense and Bob Cousy’s ball handling. Were there Celtics who had voted for Richard Nixon in the 1960 election? Probably. Did it come up? No.
Truth be told, the White House-visit-as-a-championship-perk was going strong until 1993, when Tom Lehman, an American golfer, celebrated a Ryder Cup triumph by rejecting an offer to meet then-president Bill Clinton.
According to the website Sports on Earth, Lehman referred to America’s 42nd commander in chief as a “draft-dodging baby killer.” Four years later, Packers tight end Mark Chmura – a born-again Christian who opposed Clinton’s behavior – also declined a chance to be in the presence of Clinton after his team’s Super Bowl triumph.
In the two-and-a-half decades that have followed, more and more sports heroes have refused to take a day and shake hands with the president. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady cited a family commitment in 2015 when he declined a Barack Obama meet-up. So did NASCAR stars Greg Biffle, Carl Edwards, Kevin Harvick and Tony Stewart.
During the Trump years, an endless conga line of jocks said thanks-but-no thanks to the requisite Rose Garden photo op. And when athletes did attend, they were often pelted with online hostilities and furor. After the World Series champion Chicago Cubs stopped by in 2017, the story was not about the fruition of an American dream, but whether outfielder Albert Almora – as rumored – flipped off the president.
More recently, first lady Jill Biden made headlines with a wrongheaded suggestion that the women’s basketball teams from both Louisiana State University and the University of Iowa come to the White House after the LSU Tigers captured the NCAA crown. Reaction to the idea of extending twin invitations did not go well.
When the dust cleared, no invitation was extended to the losing team, but the PR damage was done. LSU meanwhile, is due to make its visit to the White House later this month.
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Like our nation, which often feels broken to the point of disrepair, the sports team-visits-the-White House no longer works. We have stopped viewing the president as a representative of our nation. He is now a personal barometer—if you voted for Biden, you dig him. If you voted against him, you loathe him. There are no in-betweens. No subtleties.
Sports don’t need that. Sports teams don’t need that. We hit up a stadium or an arena to feel good. To scream, to cheer, to watch the spectacular and to embrace the bliss.
Sports give us simple pleasures in a complicated world. Politics, on the other hand, sucks the joy out. It makes us mean and petty and stupid. It is cruel. It is nasty.
The White House visit, once an honor, now feels like a burden.
We no longer can handle it.
