By DARLENE SUPERVILLE
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — As a pupil, Donald Trump performed highschool soccer. As a enterprise baron, he owned a crew in an upstart rival to the NFL after which sued the established league. As president, he denigrated professionals who took a knee through the nationwide anthem as a part of a social justice motion.
On Sunday, he provides to that difficult historical past with the game when he turns into the first president in workplace to attend a Tremendous Bowl.
Trump’s look on the Superdome in New Orleans to observe the two-time defending champion Kansas Metropolis Chiefs tackle the Philadelphia Eagles follows the NFL’s determination to take away the “Finish Racism” slogans which have been stenciled on the top zones since 2021.
Trump just lately ordered the cancelation of applications that encourage variety, fairness and inclusion throughout the federal authorities and a few critics see the league’s determination as a response to the Republican president’s motion. However NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell mentioned the league’s variety insurance policies usually are not in battle with the Trump administration’s efforts to finish the federal authorities’s DEI applications.
Trump, who attended the Tremendous Bowl in 1992, has prevented selecting sides in Sunday’s matchup regardless of public feedback and social media posts that recommend an affinity for Kansas Metropolis.
Final week, when requested which crew would win, Trump mentioned, “I don’t need to say, however there’s a sure quarterback that appears to be a reasonably good winner.” That seemed to be a reference to the Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes.
Trump additionally posted congratulations to the Chiefs in January after they received the AFC Championship.
The president performed soccer as a pupil on the New York Navy Academy. As a New York businessman within the early Eighties, he owned the New Jersey Generals of the USA Soccer League. Trump had sued to power a merger of the USFL and the NFL. The USFL ultimately folded.
Friction existed between Trump and the NFL throughout his first time period as president.
Trump took problem with gamers kneeling through the nationwide anthem to protest social or racial injustice. That motion started in 2016 with then-49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick taking a knee throughout “The Star-Spangled Banner” throughout an exhibition recreation in Denver.
Trump, by social media and different public feedback, insisted that gamers stand for the nationwide anthem and he known as on crew homeowners to fireplace any participant who took a knee.
“Wouldn’t you like to see one in every of these NFL homeowners, when any individual disrespects our flag, you’d say, ’Get that son of a bitch off the sector proper now. Out! He’s fired,” Trump mentioned to loud applause at a rally in Hunstville, Alabama, in 2017.
Trump is predicted to observe the sport from a field within the firm of Home Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., amongst others. Trump received Missouri and Pennsylvania — the states represented within the recreation — on his solution to a second time period in November.
His curiosity in sports activities extends past soccer. Trump is an avid golfer who owns a number of golf programs and has hosted tournaments. He sponsored boxing matches at his former casinos in Atlantic Metropolis, New Jersey, and attended a UFC match at Madison Sq. Backyard weeks after successful a second time period.
Some NFL crew homeowners have donated to his campaigns and Trump maintains friendships with Herschel Walker and Doug Flutie, who performed for the Generals. Trump endorsed Walker’s unsuccessful bid because the Republican candidate for a U.S. Senate seat from Georgia in 2022, and has tapped him to change into ambassador to the Bahamas.
Trump signed an order final week that’s meant to block transgender ladies and ladies from competing in ladies’s sports activities by concentrating on federal funding for faculties that fail to conform.
Alvin Tillery, a politics professor and variety professional at Northwestern College, mentioned in an interview that the NFL’s determination to take away “Finish Racism” slogans was “shameful” provided that the league “makes tens of billions of {dollars} largely on the our bodies of Black males.”
He mentioned the NFL ought to clarify who it was aiming to please. The NFL mentioned it was stenciling “Select Love” in one of many finish zones for the Tremendous Bowl to encourage the nation after a sequence of tragedies thus far this 12 months, together with a New Yr’s Day truck assault within the host metropolis of New Orleans that killed 14 folks and injured dozens extra.
Tillery wasn’t satisfied. “I feel they eliminated it as a result of Trump’s coming,” he mentioned.
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