President Teddy Roosevelt will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame next year, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum has claimed, citing the 26th commander in chief’s role in saving the sport from extinction more than a century ago.
Burgum made his remarks at a Bank of America reception late on Thursday at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. to celebrate this country’s upcoming 250th birthday.
The senior Trump administration official said he expects the announcement to be formally made next spring when America’s capital city is hosting the NFL draft.
“Roger Goodell was in the White House in the Oval Office, I had a chance to be with him there, because we, the National Park Service, control the National Mall,” he said alongside Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan. “The draft for the NFL is being held on the Mall a year from now (and) the Capitol will be in the background.”
The former governor of North Dakota and longtime admirer of the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize winner added, “Keep it a secret. Keep your fingers crossed, but I think we’re going to see Theodore Roosevelt inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame….it’s going to be announced on the Mall when Roger Goodell is conducting the draft.”
An NFL spokesperson didn’t reply to The Post’s request for comment.
Burgum, 69, said Roosevelt “saved football,” pointing to his 1905-06 intervention when the sport relied on dangerous “flying wedge” formations and allowed players to be dragged, pushed and even tackled below the waist in ways that produced gruesome injuries.
The New York Times labeled the 1905 season “butchery.” Roosevelt, a Harvard alumnus and avid sportsman, used his bully pulpit to force change and summoned the coaches of Harvard, Yale and Princeton twice.
The resulting rules overhaul legalized the forward pass, required a neutral zone at the line of scrimmage and helped create the modern gridiron game
The reforms also led indirectly to the formation of what became the NCAA and laid the groundwork for both college and professional football’s growth into a multibillion-dollar industry.
If approved, Roosevelt would become the first president to be named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Gerald Ford, the 37th commander in chief, was the 1934 MVP for the University of Michigan, but he turned down offers from the Lions and the Packers to go into coaching.
Ford was never an inductee, but while president, he attended the 1974 and 1976 ceremonies.
The Pro Football Hall of Fame, located in Canton, Ohio — the city where the National Football League was founded in 1920 — enshrines the sport’s greatest players, coaches and contributors.
Opened in 1963, the Hall now honors more than 370 inductees with bronze busts, artifacts and interactive exhibits spread across a 118,000-square-foot complex.
Each summer, a class of new members is selected by a 50-member panel of media voters and current Hall of Famers, then formally inducted during a ceremony the night before the annual Hall of Fame Game that kicks off the preseason.
While most honorees are players or coaches, the Hall also recognizes executives, owners and other figures who shaped the game’s growth.
Induction is considered the highest individual honor in professional football, with enshrinement requiring at least 80 percent of the vote and a five-year waiting period for most eligible candidates after retirement.
