Just one president has a sport named after him
(Read article summary)Obama plays golf and basketball, and a lot of former presidents have played sports. But none has achieved the naming rights of this 1930s chief executive.
Sure, President Obama plays sports (golf, basketball). He talks about sports (he's pushed for a college football playoff). He's even lobbied for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics.
But, historic as Mr. Obama's presidency is, here's a height he has yet to scale: He hasn't had a sport named after him. And that means Herbert Hoover's place in sports history remains secure.
What? You thought maybe there was a President Lacrosse you'd never learned about? Herbert Clark Hoover, the shortish ex-mining engineer who preceded the Depression, remains the only US chief executive with an eponymous athletic activity.
It's called Hooverball, and it's sort of a cross between tennis and heavy construction. But first, the back story:
Herbert Hoover didn't like formal exercise. Campaigning for president in 1928, he gained some 20 pounds. So after Hoover won the election, White House physician Adm. Jole Boone invented a game to keep the new president physically fit.
He laid out a grass court, sort of like tennis. He strung a high net across it, as in volleyball. Then he gave two teams a six-pound medicine ball to throw back and forth.
If you didn't catch the ball on the fly, you lost the point. Scoring was on the tennis love-15-30-40 scale. Given the ball's weight and the amount players had to run, they used pretty much every muscle in their bodies.
