George HW Bush was the most sportsmanlike modern president but Gerald Ford was the best athlete, author says
From The Big Lebowski to Alice on The Brady Bunch, depictions of bowling abound in American pop culture. The sport’s real-life adherents included Richard Nixon, who installed bowling lanes in the White House and was known to play between seven to 12 games late at night. Characteristically, he played alone. This is one of many athletic accounts from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a new book, Power Players: Sports, Politics, and the American Presidency, by the longtime political journalist Chris Cillizza.
Bowling solo personified “Nixon the loner”, Cillizza says. “He didn’t play tennis or golf with friends. He did enjoy bowling by himself. It’s a powerful image, a telling image.”
