Giving 'Em Fitz: At Army-Navy, Kennedy was a natural as a fan and a politician

Toronto Mayor Rob Ford tried to hide behind an Argonauts jersey last week.

Justifiably embattled for personal failings so gross and numerous they make Lenny Dykstra seem genteel, Ford apparently hoped the XXXL football top would obscure his troubles better than it hid his girth.

It didn't work.

First, he wore it into City Council's chambers. Most members responded by turning their backs on him, a protest that, we can assume, reflected their feelings toward Ford and not Canadian football.

Later, during an impromptu news huddle, the mayor, still in the hometown team's uniform, made an astoundingly crude remark about oral sex.

At that point, the Argonauts had seen enough of perhaps the only Canadian with less self-censoring ability than Don Cherry.

In a series of tweets, the team distanced itself from Ford.

"The Toronto Argonauts organization is not in a position to comment on the manner of dress of public officials . . . [but] the situation with respect to the Mayor and his leadership is unseemly at best."

Ford, of course, isn't the first politician to recognize the potential healing power of sports. There's nothing else in these fractious times that can unite a populous as effectively as an allegiance to a sports team.

So mayors always attend victory parades. Governors make ridiculous championship wagers. Presidents never miss a champion's White House visit.

By nature of their national office, presidents have an advantage in this area. They get to claim an affiliation with any team, anywhere in the United States. The more diverse the geography, the better for their poll numbers.

Pose with winners, and you look victorious. Phone the champions' locker room, and you're forever a part of a joyful moment. Dress like a fan, and you humanize yourself.

That's why these moments have become increasingly commonplace and, many would argue, effective.

When Ronald Reagan shared a Sports Illustrated cover with Georgetown's John Thompson and Patrick Ewing, his civil-rights policies didn't seem so harsh.

When a smiling Franklin Roosevelt tossed out the first ball at Griffith Stadium, he didn't look so patrician.

When George Bush gracefully fired a strike before Game 3 of the 2001 World Series at Yankee Stadium, he appeared more able.

Perhaps no president pulled off this sort of thing as naturally as John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

As Sports Illustrated noted after his assassination 50 years ago this week, JFK had "a consuming lifelong dedication to sports and fitness."

Kennedy golfed, sailed, skied, swam, and played football. For him, though, the real joy was in the doing, not the watching. "Spectating," he wrote in an SI article a month before his inauguration, "is becoming a national disease."

Still, as president, JFK himself was frequently a willing spectator.

Once, he sneaked into an Ivy League football game, only to be spotted by the band, which immediately blew his cover by striking up "Hail to the Chief."

On the December 1961 weekend when Ernie Davis was being awarded the Heisman Trophy, Kennedy, also in New York for a speech at the Waldorf-Astoria, had his aides go fetch the Syracuse running back. The two chatted for nearly an hour.

When Philadelphians of any stripe remember JFK, they tend to think of the Army-Navy game. They recall the two he attended as president and the one he so sadly missed.

On Dec. 2, 1961, Kennedy made his first presidential appearance at Municipal Stadium. Wearing only a suit jacket on the brisk Saturday afternoon, Kennedy beamed throughout a Navy victory.

He met the captains, and flipped and caught the coin. He spoke with generals, admirals, politicians, and those fans able to get close. He stayed the entire game and even congratulated the winners.

A year later, on Dec. 1, 1962, both he and the Army-Navy game were at the height of their popularity. Boasting 70 percent approval ratings, and with the terrors of the Cuban missile crisis more than a month past, a relaxed Kennedy showed up again without a topcoat.

This time, more accustomed to the South Philadelphia sun and the stadium's dreadful sight lines, he brought sunglasses and binoculars.

At halftime, as the president made the traditional field-crossing, a drunken fan managed to reach him. Few at the time thought much of the security breach.

Kennedy had been a Navy lieutenant in World War II, and with Roger Staubach-led Navy No. 2 in the nation heading into the 1963 game, he was as excited as sports fans everywhere.

On Nov. 20, 10 days before the game was scheduled to take place, he sent a telegram to Navy coach Wayne Hardin.

"I hope to be on the winning side when the game ends," said Kennedy, aware that he was due to watch the second half with Navy.

Two days later came Dallas.

The 1963 game, originally planned for Nov. 30, was postponed a week by the assassination.

On Dec. 7, a date already rife with national grief, the game began with a prayer and a moment of silence. Kennedy's absence loomed like a dark cloud over a fifth straight Navy victory.

His successor, Lyndon Johnson, did not attend.

Politics was the only game LBJ ever really liked or understood. And, just 15 days after Kennedy's murder, he knew it was too soon to emerge so publicly from his predecessor's shadow.

In the subsequent half-century, Army-Navy has been diminished. So has the presidency and much else in American life.

But politicians who want to display their sports cred still have plenty of opportunities.

It's doubtful, though, that any will ever pull it off as naturally as JFK at an Army-Navy game.

All these years later an image remains.

In a stadium that would be renamed in his honor, the soon-to-be martyred president is striding toward midfield. As he reaches midfield, Kennedy pauses in a shaft of December sunlight.

And, in my mind at least, he has stayed there forever.