"The Trump administration has urged professional football’s leaders to induct Theodore Roosevelt into the sport’s hall of fame..."

"... with one top official predicting it will happen within the year.... [Historians and sports experts have said [Theodore] Roosevelt played a crucial role by forcing a national conversation around football safety, rather than leaving it to factions that could not agree on next steps. Edward O’Keefe, the CEO of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library pointed to some of the specific changes to football that resulted from Roosevelt’s interventions. 'He helped invent the forward pass,' said O'Keefe. 'He made some of the first safety measures that continue to make the game possible today.'"

From "Trump officials push Theodore Roosevelt for Pro Football Hall of Fame/'I think we’re going to see Theodore Roosevelt inducted,' Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said at an event on Thursday" (WaPo).

I went looking in Edmund Morris's "Rise of Theodore Roosevelt" for some meatier material about TR and football. I found this on page 598:

“What matters a few broken bones to the glories of inter-collegiate sport?” he cried at a Harvard Club dinner. (Meanwhile, not far away in hospital, the latest victim of football savagery lay paralyzed for life.) He declared publicly that he would “disinherit” any son of his who refused to play college games. And in private, through clenched teeth: “I would rather one of them should die than have them grow up as weaklings.”

"Pittsburghers take pride in their practical solutions, especially the quirky ones, such as the 'Pittsburgh chair'..."

"... that we use to save the parking space we shoveled out after a snowstorm. There are folding chairs, barstools, even an occasional upholstered chair — whatever your choice. The chairs are sacrosanct, and they help avoid neighborhood disputes. Or the 'Pittsburgh toilet' that stands alone and unobstructed in the basement of many older working-class homes — porcelain artifacts of when the mills were booming. It made practical sense when the men returned from the mills to wash off the grime in the laundry tubs and finish their business in the basement before going upstairs for their meal. But there has been no easy solution for keeping schools open when an expected 500,000 to 700,000 visitors attend events...."

Writes Duquesne lawprof Joseph Sabino Mistick, in "Schools are closing for the NFL draft. What does this teach students? Pittsburgh prides itself on showing up and working hard. Students should, too" (WaPo).

"Walz only seemed like a football coach to voters with no preexisting relationship to football. His image embodied the liberal conception of nontoxic masculinity, a reverse Margaret Thatcher."

Writes Chuck Klosterman in his new book "Football," reviewed in "Is Football Doomed? Chuck Klosterman Thinks So. In his new book, the writer goes deep on a sport that dominates American cultural life — but possibly not for long." The review is by Dwight Garner in the NYT.

Garner says: "I like reading Klosterman. He’s a dorm-room philosopher and, on pop topics, the overthinker’s overthinker." Despite the headline for the review, Garner is less interested in the prediction of doom — which "takes up a relatively small portion of his book, mostly at the beginning and at the end" — and more interested in what else is in there: "The 'football is doomed' material is like a pancake that arrives alongside an order of Peking duck. The tastiest stuff is mostly tucked inside." Like that Walz material.

I've read a few Chuck Klosterman books. Click my Chuck Klosterman tag. I like the writing style. Here's an example from the NYT review: "[Football] will never completely disappear, in the same way you can still hear jazz on NPR and you can still smoke Lucky Strikes inside a casino."

At least he's in the Injustice Hall of Fame.

Perfection. pic.twitter.com/Gurj0l8nJn

— Savage (@SavageSports_) January 29, 2026

ADDED: Who else in in the Injustice Hall of Fame? Well, Tolstoy never won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gandhi never won the Nobel Peace Prize. Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick never won a Best Director Oscar. The Monkees are not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Ken Doll is not in the National Toy Hall of Fame. And Hillary didn't get to be President.

"Big Time, Strong, Glamorous, and Exciting."

What do you want from football?

I'm reading Trump, complaining about football, at Truth Social: "I can’t watch the new NFL Kickoff. Like many others, I just turn my head. Who has the right to make such a change? So disparaging to the game! The original was Big Time, Strong, Glamorous, and Exciting. The ridiculous new Kickoff Rule takes away the prestige and power of the game. I hope College Football doesn’t follow suit!"

Glamorous.... the most powerful man in the world cries out for the old-time macho brutal collision of giant male bodies and what he's missing is the glamor.

I'm looking up "glamorous," and I like, for Trump's use of the word, the OED's second definition: "Attractive or appealing in an exciting way, esp. because out of the ordinary or suggestive of a more colourful or thrilling way of life." One of the sample quotes is from the 1960 novel, "The Custard Boys": "The cinema, the newspapers and the war books conditioned us to look upon war as glamorous and exciting."

Perhaps somewhere in Trump's fervid mind there's the notion that MAGA really means "Make America Glamorous Again."

"I want to give all the glory and thanks to God.... I would die for my team."

JUST IN: Indiana quarterback Fernando Mendoza gives all glory to God, breaks down in tears after winning the College Football National Championship.

“I was a two-star recruit coming out of high school. I got declined a walk-on offer to the University of Miami, full circle moment… pic.twitter.com/jhufc5yvVN

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 20, 2026

Chuck Culpepper at WaPo — "Indiana wins a national championship that is almost too much to fathom" (gift link) — begins:

Maybe sometime this month or this summer or this century, all the fans and alumni widely known as Hoosiers and all the people who follow college football might scale a deeply human mental hurdle about the rousing theater of Monday night. They might find a way to believe what they saw. They might believe the gobsmacking truth that when a storybook five months ended, the confetti in Hard Rock Stadium rained down Indiana crimson-and-cream. Many of the 67,227 might comprehend that, indeed, as the videotape shows, they hung around with their joy and their goose bumps and belted out “We Are The Champions.” They might grasp that they heard a revolutionary 64-year-old coach in his second Indiana season tell of “waxing tables” among the unglamorous tasks of a Division II coach a decade ago, at which time, of course, “I never really thought this was possible."... The first 16-0 team in the top level since Yale in 1894 was the losingest program in college football history as of 2023 when it hired [coach Curt] Cignetti from James Madison to very little national ripple on an innocuous Thursday in late November....

Hoosiers fans sing “We Are the Champions.” Incredible. pic.twitter.com/y6LWVXnKqt

— Blake Toppmeyer (@btoppmeyer) January 20, 2026

AND: Little fuss was made over it, and he wasn't the center of things, but Trump was there:

The crowd at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami roars as @POTUS is shown during the Star-Spangled Banner 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/gqQ3ojBXho

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) January 20, 2026

PLUS: A Cignetti quote that sounds Trumpy: "It’s a great story, a tremendous story. Probably one of the greatest stories of all time."

ALSO: Hoosiers take to the streets of Bloomington:

Safe to say Bloomington ain’t sleeping tonight
pic.twitter.com/vEcr7FU9tp

— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) January 20, 2026

AND:

Never Daunted. Tonight, our tower lights will shine in cream and crimson for one hour to celebrate @IndianaFootball winning the College Football Playoff National Championship! pic.twitter.com/S9a8tI7xbD

— Empire State Building (@EmpireStateBldg) January 20, 2026

At the Winter Night Café...

... you can talk, watch the big game...

Go Hoosiers! #Hoosiers #Football #championship #miami pic.twitter.com/KR2Q17xqIF

— John Mellencamp (@johnmellencamp) January 19, 2026

... or dance all night.

@_chorgi_

♬ Charleston - Swing Jazz Parade

"Now, let's kick off the second half of the Rose Bowl"/"I got chills right now"/"I just got a red, white, and boner"/"I think I got a little freedom erection."

The things they say on ESPN:

 

This was the greatest two minutes of televised college sports commentary ESPN has showed since June!

pic.twitter.com/VHGYgBEraf

— Noah Bieniek (Bee-Nick) (@NoahB77_) January 2, 2026

"America sending a message to the world" — if the world watched the Rose Bowl — "We got a B2 and you don't."

"Ex-Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore told mistress he was going to make her watch him kill himself — with butter knives, kitchen scissors."

 That's the disturbing headline in The New York Post.

The inconsolable 39-year-old [Moore] allegedly burst into the apartment of his executive assistant and mistress, Paige Shiver, on Wednesday, where he grabbed butter knives and kitchen scissors and told her he was going to make her watch him commit suicide. Shiver, 32, had broken off the illicit tryst with her boss just two days before, prosecutor Kati Rezmierski said during Moore’s arraignment on Friday afternoon.The pair has been in an “intimate relationship” for a number of years, she added.... Shiver reported their relationship to the University of Michigan’s athletic department when Moore continued to call and text her, despite her efforts to ignore him, prosecutors said.... Prosecutors on Friday described to the court how an enraged Moore told his mistress, “you ruined my life,” and that he was going to kill himself and “make you watch.”...

"It sounds so beautiful I want to give all the glory to God we were never supposed to be in this position but by the glory of God" the Hoosiers beat the Buckeyes.

𝗧𝗥𝗘𝗡𝗗𝗜𝗡𝗚: Indiana superstar QB Fernando Mendoza's post-game interview has gone viral 😭😭

One of the greatest interviews you will ever see.pic.twitter.com/1Gcp3AE7XU

— Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) December 7, 2025

"The people around him are similar to Biden’s aides. They would talk as if we’re living in a little bit of a fantasy world."

"Trump, in that way, with the help of his aides and his doctors have created this fiction about his health to hide the hard, cold truth that he is 79 and one of the oldest people to ever occupy the Oval Office.”

Said political historian Matthew Dallek, quoted in "Shorter Days, Signs of Fatigue: Trump Faces Realities of Aging in Office/President Trump has always used his stamina and energy as a political strength. But that image is getting harder for him to sustain" (NYT).

Is this even news at all? What's news to me and why I'm blogging this is that the NYT is displayed at the top of the home page as if it's the top news story of the day:

"Six Takeaways From the Senate Deal to End the Shutdown."

Headline at the NYT. Free-access link: here. The 6 things (paraphrased unless in quotes):

1. Democrats lost their unity.

2. The health care matter was left out.

3. "Trump’s pressure tactics worked.... The group of people affected by the shutdown grew with each week" — from the thousands of federal workers going without pay to the millions who expected food-buying assistance and the millions who were hoping to travel by plane.

4. Trump did not participate in talks with Democratic Party leaders. He was, conspicuously, at an NFL game when the deal coalesced last night.

5. Republican leaders Mike Johnson and John Thune also withheld participation.

6. Democrats at least have "some concessions in their fight against the Trump administration’s concerted effort to reconfigure and diminish the federal government." That's not about health care. It's about rehiring those who were laid off during the shutdown and barring further layoffs until January 30th.

ADDED: Will Trump gloat? Should he? He hasn't put anything up on Truth Social since his display — 13 hours ago — of Air Force One flying over the football stadium. And at X, 9 hours ago:

 

The most EPIC flyover of the season 🇺🇸🦅 pic.twitter.com/WYJtg7AHcW

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) November 10, 2025

This afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin, we've got the Wisconsin/Ohio State football game and the big "No Kings" rally.

Am I worried about the chaos? Here's a helpful chart:

In short, it's a big Saturday, but a normal Saturday. A protest at the Capitol and a big football game at Camp Randall. The crowds should flow in and back out as crowds have ebbed and flowed from the isthmus from the beginning of football.

UPDATE, the next day: I'm seeing estimates that 10,000 to 15,000 attended, so that was much more than the "expected crowd" Grok put on the chart I asked it to make. The crowd was very peaceful. Reminding me of the Tea Party gatherings of yore. No one got arrested. I didn't see any hecklers or counter-protesters. There also weren't traffic problems. We easily drove downtown and parked in a parking structure a couple blocks from the Capitol. 

"Bad Bunny’s critics have zeroed in on his criticism of Trump’s agenda, his exclusively Spanish-language lyrics, his gender-fluid fashion choices and..."

"... his comments in a recent interview sharing that part of the reason he was not touring his latest album, 'Debí Tirar Más Fotos,' in the U.S. mainland was out of concern his concerts would become a target for Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids."

From "Why Bad Bunny’s selection as the Super Bowl halftime headliner is sparking MAGA fury/The Puerto Rican recording artist opposed Trump in 2024 and is not offering tour dates in the U.S. mainland to avoid exposing his fans to ICE raids" (WaPo).

"Terry Long, football gave me CTE and it caused me to drink a gallon of antifreeze.... Please study brain for CTE. I’m sorry. The league knowingly concealed the dangers to our brains to maximize profits. They failed us.”

Wrote Shane Tamura, quoted in "NYC mass shooter Shane Tamura found with note blaming NFL for giving him CTE — even though he never played pro football" (NY Post).

Terry Long, was a "former Pittsburgh Steelers player who was diagnosed with CTE after downing antifreeze to kill himself 20 years ago."

Tamura apparently intended "to shoot up the NFL HQ — but 'mistakenly went up the wrong elevator banks' and ended up on a higher floor."

Was Tamura influenced by Luigi Mangione?

By the way, "CNN’s Erin Burnett is being skewered for reporting that the gunman who opened fire in a Midtown skyscraper — killing an NYPD cop and three others — was 'possibly white' after viewing the initial security footage released immediately after Shane Tamura’s deadly rampage" (NY Post).

"Ambitious Democrats Have a New Game Plan: Yak It Up About Sports/Prominent leaders are flocking to sports radio shows and podcasts, an early sign of how the party is trying to reach apolitical young men...."

A NYT article that begins:

“I hate the Packers,” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said of his state’s rival football team from Wisconsin....

He's trying to show his aptitude for national politics by insulting the people of a swing state. Genius! The "coach" has a "game plan."

“The Sixers suck right now,” declared Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, lamenting the decline of Philadelphia’s basketball team.

Yeah, at least insult your own team. 

The hot takes are flowing as a parade of ambitious Democrats talk sports, trying to accentuate their salt-of-the-earth credentials and forge stronger bonds with voters.

Count the metaphors:

"Growing up, Kyle Smith did not like sports. 'I was scared of the boys in sports,' said Mr. Smith, 31, who is gay."

"He described himself as the type of teen who was way more interested in watching 'The September Issue,' the documentary about the inner workings of Vogue.... He was... named the first-ever fashion editor of the National Football League... with a directive to use fashion and style to reach new audiences through the league’s media platforms. Mr. Smith works with athletes to create and share content — photos or videos of them showcasing their off-duty style at events like men’s fashion week — and helps players and teams build relationships with traditional fashion media brands like GQ and Vogue. At Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, he will be part of a team covering what players and other notable attendees wear to the game during a new red-carpet segment...."

From "Did You Know the N.F.L. Has a Fashion Editor? Kyle Smith’s job isn’t quite like any other in professional sports" (NYT).

"Let's just take Superbowl Sunday. Mmkay? It's gonna affect beer. Mmkay? Most of it — Corona, here — comes from Mexico. It's gonna affect your guac. Because what is guacamole made of? Avocados. Both from Mexico."

Chuck Schumer claims that President Trump's tariffs will raise the price of beer because "most of it comes from Mexico" while holding a can of corona.

This might be the most embarrassing thing I've ever seen a politician do lmfao. pic.twitter.com/z4Z0W22gUe

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 3, 2025

Chuck Schumer is attempting to lure Americans away from Trump by tempting us with the humble indulgences beer and guacamole — drinking and snacking — paired with watching television. But even if Americans were hopelessly addicted to these fattening pleasures, we could still, easily, choose a non-Mexican beer and serve those tortilla chips with melted cheese instead of that avocado paste. That might work out well for Wisconsin — home of beer and cheese — and quite badly for Mexico. What is it going to do with all those avocados if we say we'd rather push for Mexico to help us with the border problem than continue to mindlessly consume that that green goo... that sludge... that guck... 

This is fresh fruit, farmed in vast quantity in Mexico, where it will rot if not sold. What am I missing? We will easily win this trade war. And I'm sure Schumer knows all this and is embarrassed to be smarmily plying us with a beer and an avocado.

By the way, Americans didn't use to care about avocados at all. Here's an 2015 article in The Atlantic — "The Selling of the Avocado/How the 'alligator pear' went from obscure delicacy to America's favorite fruit":

"I’m grateful he accepted my invitation and hope he’s able to have fun and appreciate how much his fellow citizens admire his courage."

 Said JD Vance, quoted in "Daniel Penny accepts VP-elect JD Vance's invite to be his 'personal guest' at the Army-Navy game Saturday. "

"For the unacquainted, Mr. Trump’s gyrations are a far cry from the complexities of the moonwalk, the Macarena or the Electric Slide."

"Both simple and strangely hypnotic, Mr. Trump’s wiggle incorporates the kind of stiff swivel often employed by arrhythmic wedding guests or awkward, one-too-many conventioneers."

Writes Jesse McKinley, in "Trump’s Signature Dance Move Finds Its Way to the Sports World/Jon Jones punctuated his U.F.C. win with the president-elect’s shimmy, and numerous N.F.L. players followed suit on Sunday" (NYT).

It says there that McKinley is "a Styles reporter who covered the criminal trial of Donald J. Trump earlier this year, from opening statements to guilty verdicts."

McKinley has written a lot of other things too. Why focus on Trump's criminal trial? Maybe subtle humor: Not long ago it seemed that New York authorities had found a way to put Trump in prison, and now we're just wondering if it's okay for football players to dance the Trump dance.

McKinley also wrote, recently: