Look sports fans. What’s going on in the mainstream news media is the prevailing cultural narrative that our current president is dividing us and “popular” professional athletes are hurt by it—so hurt that they aren’t going to the White House even if they are invited. I guess you have to really admire people who protest while their Lincoln Navigators are parked outside.
To me, this reveals a great deal about their character. They don’t fully understand what it means to go to America’s home. Our current president doesn’t own it any more than any member of the Congressional Black Caucus owns their seat in the Congress. These belong to the people of the United States. It’s the people who want to see them there. And, when you are invited to go to the White House because you are a national champion, you go. You go to the White House because the president has invited you. Our current president won’t be around forever. You can thank the Constitution and Federalist Paper 71 for that one. It doesn’t matter who occupies the White House. It’s the White House. You go. I did. Twice.
I was the Washington Liaison Officer for the Air Force Academy when the Falcon football team kept beating Army and Navy, garnering the team’s seniors a trip to the White House to receive the Commander-in-Chief’s trophy. The winner of the round-robin series received that honor as great as the winner of college football’s national championship. I coordinated the trip with the West Wing on behalf of the team and the Academy.
The first time was with a president I couldn’t stand. In fact, he was a rascal and a womanizer. Sound like someone familiar? People put up with him because the economy was good and he hadn’t wrecked it. But, he was the president. So, you might say, well, if the Commander-in-Chief requires you at the White House, and you’re in the military, you go. He didn’t require us to be there. He invited us because the Secretary of Defense asked him to invite us. I know. I proposed the letter. This particular president certainly wanted a “friendly audience” in the Rose Garden and we obliged. We struggled to get the numbers of “volunteer” on-lookers that POTUS wanted in attendance, but that didn’t matter. He was the president.
The second time was with a president I admired. He was a man of great character, something for which the mainstream news media never really gave him much credit. But, he was the president. Again, I authored the letter that SecDef forwarded to the White House to invite us. They did. We came. Not surprisingly, I had no problem filling out the guest list for that trophy ceremony on the south lawn. There are so many more stories and memories from those days, and I’ll never forget them.
There is no victory without worthy struggle. There’s not worthy struggle when our champions turn down an invitation to the White House. They further divide the country while blaming someone else for the division. They cheapen their own efforts at a time when their adoring fans want to elevate them. They reflect poorly on their own character at a time when they have supposedly proved it.
Perhaps they aren’t students of history enough to understand these words from General George S. Patton, Jr.:
“For over a thousand years Roman conquerors returning from the wars enjoyed the honor of triumph, a tumultuous parade. In the procession came trumpeteers, musicians and strange animals from conquered territories, together with carts laden with treasure and captured armaments. The conqueror rode in a triumphal chariot, the dazed prisoners walking in chains before him. Sometimes his children robed in white stood with him in the chariot or rode the trace horses. A slave stood behind the conqueror holding a golden crown and whispering in his ear a warning: that all glory is fleeting.”
Note to Mr. Curry and Mr. James: When you turn down a trip to the White House, I feel sorry for you. Someday, when your grandchildren, who may be the only adoring fans you have left, ask you about your “conquerors” trip to the White House after your championship, you’ll only be able to say, “Well, we never emerged from our Lincolns.”