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Ike and the Team

You may know that Dwight (“Ike”) Eisenhower was once President of the United States. You may know that as a five-star general, Eisenhower led the victorious Allied forces in World War II. But do you know that this same man came very close to becoming a football star? Or that Ike became instead a cheerleader?

It looked for a while as if Eisenhower would be an all-time football great at West Point. He had excelled in sports in the small town of Abilene, Kansas, before he went to the military academy. But it was at West Point that this husky, aggressive young man emerged as a potential star. He played varsity football in 1912 as a running back and a linebacker. In those years, there were no defensive or offensive specialists. If you made the team, you played both ways and you might well play for the entire game without a substitute. That year, a spectacular Eisenhower touchdown won praise from the sports reporter of the New York Herald, and he even managed, with the help of a linebacker partner, to tackle the legendary Jim Thorpe.

In the very next week, however, his promising sports career came to a quick and painful end. Ike injured his knee quite severely when he was tackled around the ankles. “I could feel something rip,” he recalled. “I couldn’t get up, so they took me off the field, and I never got back on as a player again.” In those days, the doctors could do very little for a damaged knee. They ordered Ike to rest the knee and see if it recovered. As Eisenhower began to feel better, he optimistically decided to try some horseback riding with the drill team. As he mounted and dismounted his horse at a gallop, however, he was thrown to the ground and the very same knee was reinjured. Still, he didn’t give up. Now, he decided, he would try a third sport. This time, it was boxing, but once again he hurt that tender knee. The damage this time was permanent and discouraging to a young man who had shown such promise.

As you might imagine, he was deeply depressed for a time. “Life seemed to have lost its meaning,” he wrote; “a need to excel was gone.” He wrote to a friend that he was “never cheerful anymore. The fellows that used to call me ‘sunny jim’ call me ‘gloomy face’ now . . . . I hate to be so worthless and helpless.” But then he added this prediction: “Guess I’ll come out of it soon though.”

He did. At the end of the 1912 season, Ike earned West Point’s greatest football honor: the letter “A.” Proud to have his “A,” he knew now that he would never again be able to support Army’s team on the field. But then he found two ways that he could help. Instead of sulking, he decided to support the team as a cheerleader. Instead of hanging his head because he was on the sidelines, he became a leader, the head cheerleader. Leading pep rallies wasn’t the same as scoring touchdowns and reading about your exploits in the newspaper, but Ike put the same enthusiasm and energy into cheerleading that he had devoted to his more heroic activities on the field.

When another opportunity to support the team arose, Ike was quick to accept. The coach was impressed by Ike’s determination and knowledge of the game, so he asked Eisenhower to take charge of a junior varsity team. Now, he could hone his skills as a teacher and leader. Ike taught them football strategy and provided them with some clear lessons about how to strive for victory even though the breaks are not going your way. And how to sacrifice your self-interest to the interest of the team.

These were lessons that would help mold the young man who would go on to become the leader of the Allied forces in World War II and a two-time President of the United States. Determination, steady leadership, and team play would be hallmarks of the career of a former football player and cheerleader.

© Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission, Washington, DC, 2005