Trump for U.S. sports czar

OPINION:

Be it Little League, high school, college or major league professional teams, wokeness and greed have infiltrated every level of sport and are destroying it from within. We need a “Make Sports Great Again” campaign, and who better to do that than President Trump?

Many people either don’t know, have simply forgotten or deliberately hide the fact that Mr. Trump is much more than an expert in the world of sports. One of the “wow” facts about him, which most triggers many on the left, is this: the amount he accomplished in life before age 40 in the toughest business city in the world. One of those accomplishments is that at just 37, he bought the New Jersey Generals football team in the United States Football League and turned it into the premier team in the league in just one year.

Why? Because like so many other things, “Trump knows … football.” Dramatically better, I daresay, than the current commissioner of the NFL, who has been open to every woke initiative thrown his way.

On Truth Social — in between efforts to rightfully highlight the growing scandal that is the “Russia collusion” hoax coup attempt against him — Mr. Trump recently posted about sports in two critically important ways. The first was his announcement, via executive order, of the creation of the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness & Nutrition and the reestablishment of the Presidential Fitness Test.

In the executive order, the president stressed that “we must address the threat to the vitality and longevity of our country that is posed by America’s declining health and physical fitness. For far too long, the physical and mental health of the American people has been neglected. Rates of obesity, chronic disease, inactivity, and poor nutrition are at crisis levels, particularly among our children. These trends weaken our economy, military readiness, academic performance, and national morale.”

Much of our physical weakness and poor health stems directly from the woke far left purposely and foolishly equating any talk of treating and reversing obesity and its dramatically adverse effects on our physical and mental health as “fat shaming.” Worse than that, over the past decade, the left has gone out of its way to normalize dangerous and even morbid obesity. With this executive order, Mr. Trump is seeking to reverse that trend and to make sports once again an essential part of the lives of American children.

Some of those children may choose to play football, excel at it at a young age and be offered a college scholarship. Just a few years ago, that was a simple process. Today, in the age of millions of dollars in name, image and likeness money, as well as transfer portals, that process has devolved into a greed-driven quagmire.

Although many on the political left refuse to give Mr. Trump credit for anything, the fact is that he did excel at various sports in high school, college and beyond. That athlete still lives within him. One example is his exceptional golf game. In July 2024, just three days before the horrific assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, I was invited by Mr. Trump to his course in Jupiter, Florida, to talk golf and play a bit. While on the driving range with him, I stood in awe watching him pound 250-yard drives down the middle and purposely shape them left and right at will. All at age 78.

Mr. Trump knows and loves sports and wants the best for the athletes and fans. He was aware of the blight on college football and sports — name, image and likeness money and transfer portals — and commented on it at the White House after announcing the president’s council.

Mr. Trump said: “They’re going to also be working on college football in terms of what happened. … It’s a mess. What they are doing with college football — and fans are upset about it — is players are being taken from team after team and being traded around like playing cards. A lot of money is passing, and nobody knows what is happening. These people behind me are going to be very much involved in figuring that whole thing out to bring some sanity back to football and college sports. This is very, very bad for women. … No women are able to get the money they are talking about. … It seems to be going mostly to football, some basketball.”

As we have seen with the left’s relentless attacks on Mr. Trump for the past decade, so many institutions we once trusted have been politicized and weaponized. We should not allow that to happen in sports. Yet, it is.

To be sure, many people believe the four commissioners of major league sports — Roger Goodell of the NFL, Adam Silver of the NBA, Rob Manfred of MLB and Gary Bettman of the NHL — lean left and are eagerly receptive to woke initiatives. One glaring example often cited is Mr. Manfred’s incredibly biased and ignorant decision, in concert with President Biden and activist and anarchist voices from the far left, to take the 2021 MLB All-Star game away from Atlanta for reasons of identity politics.

This was after the Atlanta Braves, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and practically the entire state of Georgia begged him to reconsider. In going full woke, Mr. Manfred falsely smeared the reputation of the state of Georgia and its people and cost Greater Atlanta millions of dollars.

To make sports great again, we must remove greed, politics and the weaponization of sports from the greater game. No one wants to do that more than Mr. Trump.

I truly believe that while fulfilling his duties as president, Mr. Trump still has the energy level needed to guide the four major leagues and our college sports programs away from the self-destructive policies they have initiated because of greed and political bias.

Trump for sports czar of America. He will make sports great again.

• Douglas MacKinnon is a former White House and Pentagon official and author of the book “The 56: Liberty Lessons From Those Who Risked All to Sign the Declaration of Independence.” Follow him @DougOfSkye.