Just about everyone who gets involved with sports eventually gets hurt, both physically and emotionally. And while athletics are generally healthy endeavors —and while fitness is good—most everyone’s suffered sports injuries. For me, that includes three knee operations, three horrific ankle sprains, several dislocated fingers, an eye injury from a sucker punch, and some rearranged teeth due to an errant elbow on a basketball court.
Tennis anyone? But even tennis has its hazards.
Which brings us to our 30th President, a Vermonter named Calvin Coolidge. Our Presidents Day holiday, as always, involves stories of our illustrious—and not so illustrious—Commanders-in-Chief, including Silent Cal.
A true conservative, Coolidge was Governor of Massachusetts in 1919 when the Boston police went out on strike. (Yes, Massachusetts used to have conservatives.) With criminals running rampant, Coolidge sent in the Massachusetts militia into Beantown and famously stated that “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.”
Coolidge’s decisive action won him kudos, plaudits, and huzzahs throughout New England and beyond. In 1920 he was elected vice-president to serve under President Warren G. Harding. When Harding died in 1923 the taciturn New Englander became president.
America experienced unprecedented peace and prosperity under Coolidge. The 1924 election returned Coolidge to the White House in a landslide. His popular vote total almost doubled that of the Democrat nominee, John W. Davis.
This brings us back to tennis.
President Coolidge’s sons, John and Calvin Jr., loved to play tennis on the White House court. One day Cal. Jr. played without socks and developed a small toe blister. Sadly, infection and then sepsis resulted, and the 16-year-old was soon fighting for his life.
As the bedridden youngster’s condition deteriorated, he tearfully pleaded with his father for help. Coolidge may have been the most powerful man in the world, but neither he nor the nation’s top doctors could save young Calvin, who died within a week.
The grieving Coolidge would never be the same. Despite unprecedented popularity, the heartbroken president chose not to run again in 1928. He died in 1933 at the age of 60 and was buried in his hometown of Plymouth Notch, Vermont.
One must ponder how history may have unfolded very differently if only young Calvin Jr. had worn socks that fateful day on the White House tennis court.
Basketball, anyone?
