Jimmy Carter, who died Sunday at age 100, was probably best known as a one-time peanut farmer who became the 39th president of the United States and for his long post-White House career focused on humanitarian efforts.
While Carter’s sports fandom mainly centered around NASCAR, as president he helped establish the tradition of inviting championship teams to visit the White House.
In early 1980 the city of Pittsburgh had a lot to celebrate. The prior fall, the Pirates won the World Series in seven games over the Orioles, powered by Hall of Famers Dave Parker and Willie Stargell.
In January, the Steelers beat the Los Angeles Rams 31-19 to become the first franchise to win four Super Bowls. Terry Bradshaw quarterbacked the team in its victory at the Rose Bowl, long before the big game became associated with the month of February.
On Feb. 22, 1980, a month after the game and just before spring training started for baseball, Carter, a lifelong Braves fan, invited both teams to the White House in a celebration that was the first of its kind. Today, teams give the current president a jersey with their name on it. Carter got a “Terrible Towel,” the Steelers’ trademark rally towel and a Pirates cap.
“How delighted I am to join in with all of you in this salute to a place that really deserves to be called the City of Champions,” Carter said. “I want to include in this salute not only Pittsburgh itself but to the entire western region of Pennsylvania, because I don’t know of any team or set of teams that have had such overwhelming and constant and enthusiastic support than these two teams have had from the entire region of Pennsylvania.”
The celebration occurred the same day as USA hockey’s Miracle On Ice win over the Soviet Union in the Winter Olympics, making Carter a busy sports fan that day. After hosting both Pittsburgh teams in the afternoon, Carter phoned USA coach Herb Brooks that evening to congratulate him and the team on the win. (Carter also notably initiated the U.S. boycott of the Summer Olympics in 1980 in protest of the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.)
The Steelers and Pirates weren’t the first two championship teams to visit the White House. Two years earlier, Carter hosted the 1978 NBA champion Washington Bullets, making him the first president to host celebrations for the champions of the three major sports leagues of the time (NBA, MLB, NFL).
Before Carter, White House celebrations of sports teams were sporadic. Andrew Johnson hosted the first sports teams to the White House in the Brooklyn Atlantics and Washington Nationals amateur baseball clubs in 1865. The first World Series champions to make a White House visit is believed to be the 1924 Washington Senators, who made the short trip within the nation’s capital to see Calvin Coolidge in 1925. John F. Kennedy hosted the first NBA champions, his hometown Boston Celtics in January 1963. Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers were the first men’s basketball NCAA champions to visit the White House when they met Gerald Ford in 1976.
Carter hosting the Steelers marked the first Super Bowl champion to visit 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Since Carter, every U.S. president has hosted Super Bowl winners at the White House. After Carter lost the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan, the actor-turned-president continued what Carter started and made championship teams regular visitors. Reagan made some history of his own, hosting the 1983 New York Islanders, the first Stanley Cup champions to visit the White House. Now, a White House invitation is on the agenda of every major professional league’s champion.
“It really was Carter who saw the magic of sports to bring people together,” Stewart McLaurin, president of the White House Historical Association, told Front Office Sports. “It wasn’t just teams he brought to the White House. He brought Hank Aaron to the White House after he had his record-breaking home run in 1974. That really began a tradition that has evolved and taken on different manifestations with different presidencies.”
In his speech in 1980, Carter talked about being in the Pirates’ locker room after Game 7 as they celebrated the World Series, joked about losing count on the Steelers’ number of titles, and singled out Steelers running back Rocky Bleier, who was a military veteran like him and had been awarded a Purple Heart.
“Rocky Bleier, here, of the Steelers, fought for our country, as you know, in Vietnam,” Carter said in his speech. “This was not a popular war. It always requires courage to fight and to risk one’s life, but it requires even more courage when there is not an overwhelming sense of patriotism and support, as there was missing during the Vietnam war years…But as you know, Rocky Bleier did go. He was wounded severely. Some doctors, I understand, even said that he would not recover. But now he’s been able to overcome a combat injury of very serious nature, and he’s played 10 rugged years of championship professional football.”
Over the years, the number of championship teams invited has expanded to include college teams and women’s sports. Additionally, as sports and politics have mixed, the visits have become more controversial.
In 2017, Donald Trump withdrew the Golden State Warriors’ White House invitation after star player Steph Curry said he wasn’t interested in going after being outspoken about Trump’s political views. Trump attacked Curry on Twitter, leading LeBron James to respond by calling the president a “bum.”
During the government shutdown in 2019, Trump hosted the Clemson Tigers, college football’s national champion, and treated them to thousands of dollars worth of McDonald’s and Wendy’s.
In September, Gotham F.C. became the first NWSL championship team to visit the White House a year after they won the league title over Seattle, etching another chapter in the tradition Carter pioneered.
