President Donald Trump was joined by professional athletes on Thursday as he signed an executive order that will expand on his council on sports, fitness and nutrition, including by reviving the Presidential Fitness Test in public schools.
The event, which featured golfer Bryson DeChambeau, Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker and former New York Giants linebacker Lawrence Taylor, among others, comes as the US prepares to host the 2025 Ryder Cup, 2026 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics — all of which are major feathers in Trump’s cap for his second term.
The president, who often boasts that he gets to oversee the milestone sporting events, has been heavily invested in making them a success. He has also used his bully pulpit to reshape cultural issues, many of which have been tied directly to sports, including new policies on transgender athletes and threatening the Washington Commanders to change its name back to the “Redskins” or potentially face restrictions on a major stadium deal.
This initiative seems to be an attempt to build on that momentum.
The order formally reestablishes the Presidential Fitness Test, first introduced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, creating school-based programs that reward “excellence in physical education” and developing criteria for a Presidential Fitness Award, according to details of the order obtained by CNN.
“From the late 1950s until 2013, graduate scholars all across our country competed against each other in the Presidential Fitness Test, and it was a big deal. This was a wonderful tradition, and we’re bringing it back,” Trump said Thursday.
The test, which will be administered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., brings back the fitness challenge that permeated public schools and anointed children who received the highest scores with presidential recognition. Former President Barack Obama abandoned the test in 2012 and replaced it with an assessment called the FitnessGram focused on bettering individual health.
“President Trump wants every young American to have the opportunity to emphasize healthy, active lifestyles — creating a culture of strength and excellence for years to come,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement.
The order, which the White House says addresses “the widespread epidemic of declining health and physical fitness,” instructs the presidential council to partner with professional athletes, sports organizations and influential figures.
Many of those high-profile individuals joined Trump in the White House’s Roosevelt Room to become formal members of the council. All of them have close ties to the president.
DeChambeau, a Trump favorite who currently plays on the LIV Golf League and recently visited the White House where he played golf on the South Lawn, is being named chairman of the council.
Butker met with the president in the Oval Office earlier this year. The kicker set off waves of criticism last year after he said in a controversial commencement speech that a woman’s accomplishments in the home are more valuable than any academic or professional goals and called Pride Month a “deadly sin,” among other things. Butker later defended his address and emphasized his Catholic faith.
Taylor, a New York City sports star during Trump’s golden years in the 1980s and 1990s, has spoken at the president’s campaign rallies.
Other attendees at the Thursday event included Cody Campbell, a former college football player and the head of Texas Tech’s Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) collective who has been a key voice contributing to Trump’s policies on college sports; Paul “Triple H” Levesque, the WWE’s Chief Content Officer and 14-time World Champion who is the public face of a company that has a decades-long relationship with Trump; Annika Sorenstam, a Swedish professional golfer considered one of the most successful female golfers in history; and Stephen Soloway, a New Jersey physician who served on Trump’s sports council during his first term.
This article has been updated with additional developments.
