A prominent person dies and all manner of folks come out of the woodwork to lay claim to personal interactions with the recently departed, however tenuous. So, not to be left too far behind in this matter….
I did not actually know George H.W. Bush, or any United States President. But I was in near proximity to him once, and to some other Commanders in Chief as well. Some First Ladies, too.
(I also was once in the same room as Fidel Castro. But that’s another story, another country and another system of government. So, never mind.)
About the Bush memory. It was in the mid-‘80s. He was still Vice President, filling in for Ronald Reagan at a U.S. Olympic Committee function meant to honor American athletes. The event was supposed to have been at the White House but was moved to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building across the street. A disappointment—because of the lesser venue, not because I necessarily yearned to see Reagan in person.
I was among a small group of Olympic reporters underwhelmed by Bush’s brief rote speech from a prepared statement. Still, there was this quintessential Washington, D.C. moment, when Chris Wallace—then the chief White House correspondent for NBC News—shouted a question, thoroughly unrelated to the proceedings, at Bush as he left. Just like you’d see on the evening news. A query about the Iran-Contra scandal, I think. Bush ignored him. Just like you’d see on the evening news.
Presidents are celebrities, of course, and like celebrities they tend to appear at major happenings. That meant it was almost inevitable that, as I went about a half century of sports journalism, a President and I would occupy the same relative space at some point.
With some ruffles and flourishes, then, I will proceed.
At a U.S.Open tennis match in the mid-1990s, Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn were in the crowd, about three rows in front of the seats reserved for us reporters. Very inconspicuous except for the fellow accompanying them in a suit and dark glasses, with the little gizmo in his ear. The secret service profile giveaway.
Reagan attended the Opening Ceremonies of the 1984 L.A. Olympics, though I won’t count that as a close encounter because he stayed completely out of sight—behind bullet-proof glass high above the field—as he officially declared the start of those Games. By contrast, Bill Clinton brazenly marched onto the floor of the Atlanta Olympic stadium for the 1996 Ceremonies, only two days after the fatal crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island had put everyone of high alert for possible terrorism. More on Clinton in a minute.
Richard Nixon was at a Mets game not long after his 1974 resignation, but I won’t count that, either, except to say that the police security presence inconvenienced all of us in attendance. Donald Trump, still just a boastful real estate guy who liked to get his name and picture in the paper, regularly made himself obvious in his personal suite at U.S. Open tennis matches through the 1980s and into the 21st Century. (I noticed that his suite was empty at this year’s tournament.)
I did speak with Trump at length by phone in 1984, because he had just purchased the New York/New Jersey franchise in the short-lived U.S. Football League. (What I learned was that almost none of his assertions that day proved to be accurate.)
First Ladies? Aside from that Rosalynn Carter cameo at the tennis championships, Laura Bush literally brushed shoulders with me and fellow Olympic reporter Jay Weiner in a scrum of spectators during the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies. Jay said hello.
Hillary Clinton, between her roles of First Ladyship and Secretary of State, spoke to a handful of us ink-stained wretches in Singapore in July 2005. We were there to cover the International Olympic Committee meeting to name the 2012 Olympic host city and Clinton, then a New York senator, was there to pitch New York City’s bid. (New York lost to London.)
Not surprisingly, it was Clinton’s husband who most often appeared on my—and countless others’—personal radar. Aside from that Atlanta Olympic sighting, he showed up in Chicago for the first match of the 1994 World Cup soccer tournament hosted by the U.S. He was the principal dignitary at the Mets game on April 15,1997 to celebrate 50 years since Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier. (More secret service headaches, but a memorable event.)
At the 1996 Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, I was meandering around the press box at halftime when Clinton popped in, gabbing—hoarsely—with folks from the two academies and anyone else in his path. He could barely be heard because of a case of laryngitis. Standing five feet from him, I was tempted to ask if his doctor was aware that, in his condition, he nevertheless was spending the day in the freezing cold.
Didn’t happen. Wouldn’t have been polite. Plus, I hardly knew the guy.