I want to be America’s Sports-Fan-In-Chief

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Being President of the United States of America seems like a pretty sweet gig.

Sure, you have to worry about things such as holding the lives of billions of people in your nuclear-button-pushing hands and you probably have to sit through incredibly boring meetings, but you probably also get to do a lot of cool stuff, too. I mean, the day you become president, I bet they have to immediately tell you where the alien bodies are and how many surviving aliens we secretly have working inside top-secret bases for us. You can probably also get the Secret Service to open up files on the guy who used to pick on you in seventh grade or the girl who turned you down for prom in high school.

Most of all, though, the best thing about being president would be the sports. So much sports. When it comes to sports, the president pretty much gets to do whatever he (or, eventually, she) wants to do.

Earlier this week, President Donald Trump went to see Alabama play Georgia in the college football national championship game. I guarantee you he didn’t have to get his tickets off StubHub.com at a 4,000 percent mark-up. All he had to do is call someone (or, more likely, have one of his people call someone — when you are the president, you have “people”) and they pretty much have to give you a seat at the game.

And not just any seat at the game, mind you. They aren’t going to put the leader of the free world in the third deck behind a pole. You get a luxury box so you don’t have to mix with the masses. They probably don’t even charge you for the $12 beers or the $10 hot dogs.

That’s just if you want to go to the game, watch for awhile and leave when it gets boring. If you want to actually participate, they have to let you do that, too. If you want to throw out the first pitch at a baseball game on Opening Day — or, for that matter, any other day during the season — they are going to let you. You can just show up 10 minutes before the game starts. It’s not like you have to warm up or anything, because if you bounce it twice before it gets to home plate, it’s not like anyone is ever going to laugh at you.

People don’t laugh at people who have the world’s greatest army at their disposal.

Of course, actually going to sporting events is just one of the benefits of being a sports fan in the White House. For instance, whenever you have an opinion on sports, everyone has to listen to you — it’s just one of the perks that goes along with being the leader of the free world. If you fill out a March Madness bracket or you drop the third receiver from your fantasy football team, it’s pretty much written into the Constitution that ESPN has to make a big deal out of such things on the network. Richard Nixon even to to (allegedly) call a play for the Washingotn Redskins in a 1971 playoff game.

To the average sports fanatic such as myself, that’s way cooler than meeting with the Sultan of Brunei, or whatever it is presidents do when they aren’t playing golf (which, obviously, is just another sports perk that comes along with being the commander-in-chief — the ability to play golf pretty much whenever you choose).

And if you don’t feel like actually going to see the greatest athletes, you can just have them come to you. Whenever a team wins a championship, you can invite them to the White House and — if you haven’t managed to offend them in some way — they are probably going to stop by for a visit. You can probably even give Nick Saban some plays you’d like to see him run or get shooting tips from Steph Curry (you know, if he actually comes).

Not only will the athletes come to visit you, but they’ll also bring you cool swag. Every team that gets invited to the White House always brings autographed footballs and jerseys with the president’s name on the back. I do wonder, however, why no president is ever seen wearing those jerseys in public. Do they have a closet somewhere stuffed with sports jerseys? If it were me, I’d wear a different championship jersey to every press conference. Enough of the suit-and-tie nonsense. I’d wear all jerseys, all the time.

Unless, of course, Michigan won a national title. I would never wear that in public.

But then again, I don’t feel like that’s something I have to worry about any time soon, either.

By David Fong Guest columnist
http://www.sidneydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/47/2018/01/web1_FONG_201502-1.jpgBy David Fong Guest columnist
I want to be America’s Sports-Fan-In-Chief

David Fong appears on Thursdays in the Troy Daily News. Contact him at [email protected]; follow him on Twitter @thefong.

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