** Previously recorded by Phyllis Schlafly // February 2013 **
As budget cuts hit many high schools and Title IX regulations hit many colleges, this is a good time to recognize the essential role that sports play in building the character of young men. Ronald Reagan played guard on his college football team, earning a letter for three years. Reagan thrived at other sports in college, too, including track and swimming. Through perseverance and hard work, he became his college’s best swimmer, and even coached his team for his final two years.
The adversity in sports that Reagan faced and overcame as an athlete prepared him well for dealing with liberals in Washington, DC and with the Communist Soviet Union during the Cold War. Other presidents who played college football include Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, who was the most valuable player on his national champion University of Michigan team.
Another sport, safer and less expensive than football, and perhaps even better at building character in young men, is wrestling. A fourth of our Presidents, including the finest, competed as wrestlers while growing up. Three out of the four men carved on Mount Rushmore were wrestlers, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. Other wrestlers who became President were Calvin Coolidge, Dwight Eisenhower, William Howard Taft, Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Jackson.
The feminists do not like the masculine sports such as football and wrestling. They have forced colleges to eliminate hundreds of wrestling programs by applying a feminist interpretation of Title IX to compel schools to terminate wrestling. Wrestling and football school programs are essential to developing leadership and character for our nation. It’s up to parents to stop the liberals and feminists from taking these athletic opportunities away from young men.
