Exclusive | Senior Trump official pushing for Teddy Roosevelts induction into Football Hall of Fame: Saved football
President Teddy Roosevelt will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next year, U.S.Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has claimed, citing the 26th commander in chief’s role in saving the sport from extinction more than a century ago.Burgum made his remarks at a Bank of America reception late on Thursday at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.
to celebrate this country’s upcoming 250th birthday.The senior Trump administration official said he expects the announcement to be formally made next spring when America’s capital city is hosting the NFL draft.“Roger Goodell was in the White House in the Oval Office, I had a chance to be with him there, because we, the National Park Service, control the National Mall,” he said alongside Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan.“The draft for the NFL is being held on the Mall a year from now (and) the Capitol will be in the background.”The former governor of North Dakota and longtime admirer of the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize winner added, “Keep it a secret.
Keep your fingers crossed, but I think we’re going to see Theodore Roosevelt inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame….it’s going to be announced on the Mall when Roger Goodell is conducting the draft.”An NFL spokesperson didn’t reply to The Post’s request for comment.Burgum, 69, said Roosevelt “saved football,” pointing to his 1905-06 intervention when the sport relied on dangerous “flying wedge” formations and allowed players to be dragged, pushed and even tackled below the waist in ways that produced gruesome injuries.The New York Times labeled the 1905 season “butchery.” Roosevelt, a Harvard alumnus and avid sportsman, used his bully pulpit to force change and summoned the coaches of Harvard, Yale and Princeton twice.The resulting rules overhaul legalized the forward pass, required a neutral zone at the line of scrimmage and helped create the modern gridiron gameThe reforms also led indirectly to the formation ...