Sports Stars Who Became Politicians

The highest levels of sports — collegiate, the Olympics, and professional leagues — are really not all that different from the world of politics. Both involve cheering crowds, a taste of fame, a requirement of leadership, and the nagging impulse to both compete hard and leave behind a legacy in the history books, having bent fate to one's will. The combat-like nature of sports can prove to be an ample preparation course for elected office, and it's also hard to walk away from the glories, spoils, and elevated position one gets from succeeding in athletics. It might make sense then that many accomplished athletes would choose politics, as opposed to the more mild-mannered fields of broadcasting, entertaining, or coaching, as their second act. 

Here are some prominent individuals who became legends of the court, field, diamond, gridiron, or ice. They parlayed their fame, name recognition, goodwill, and likability into a place where they could wield real influence: elected office. These are major athletes who became powerful politicians.

Bill Bradley spent his entire 10-season NBA career with the New York Knicks, and it could've been longer, except that he spent two years in England after he was drafted in 1965 (#2 overall), having earnt the privilege of studying at Oxford University on a prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. A standout at Princeton University, Bradley was a three-time All-American and the Associated Press' Player of the Year in 1965, the year Bradley led his team to the Final Four, according to his Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame bio. Once he got to the professional leagues, the all-star's offensive prowess and on-court leadership won the Knicks NBA titles in 1970 and 1973.

In 1978, scarcely a year after retiring from basketball, Bradley was elected to the U.S. Senate, representing New Jersey until 1997, according to the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. He moved into the private sector for the rest of the '90s, writing essays for CBS News, teaching at Stanford University and Notre Dame, and working as an advisor for the J.P. Morgan company. Bradley made one last but major move into politics in 2000, when he sought the Democratic nomination for president, dropping out early in the primaries when it became clear he couldn't defeat Vice President Al Gore, per The New York Times.

Bob Mathias is one of the most accomplished American athletes of the 20th century, and he did it all as a nonprofessional — and in more than one sport, too. According to ESPN, in the 1948 Olympics he won the gold medal for the decathlon — a rigorous 10-event, multi-discipline competition — whose victory comes with the unofficial title of "World's Greatest Athlete" (per NPR). At just 17, he was the youngest winner in Olympic decathlon history, and after winning the gold again in 1952, the first to ever win consecutively. That year, Mathias also played for the Stanford University football team in the Rose Bowl, the only person to ever compete in a major bowl game and the Olympics in the same annum.

After being named the AP's Male Athlete of the Year (and eventual enshrinement in the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, as well as the National Track and Field Hall of Fame), Mathias graduated from Stanford, earned an officer rank in the Marines, acted in the TV series "Troubleshooters," and then got political. In 1966, he won his first election to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican representing California's District 18. Representative Mathias served four terms, until he was voted out in 1974.

In the early 20th century, when college football was more rough-and-tumble, better regarded, and more popular than its professional counterpart (per NBC Sports), collegiate gridiron greats could become superstars without ever playing in the NFL. That was the trajectory for Gerald Ford, who, according to the NCAA, led the University of Michigan to back-to-back national championships in 1932 and 1933. Ford entertained offers to go pro from both the Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers, but he passed up the chance to instead study law at Yale, where he was also on the faculty as a coach for the boxing and freshman football squads.

After forming a law practice in Michigan and enlisting in the Navy to fight in World War II, according to The New York Times, Ford won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1948, and worked his way up to the House's minority leader by the mid-1960s. In 1973, after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned following a no-contest plea on a charge of tax evasion, President Richard Nixon offered Ford the number-two job. He took it, and when Nixon similarly resigned in 1974, after the Watergate scandal, Ford ascended to the presidency of the United States — the first and only person to hold the executive office without being elected to it. He lost his bid for re-election in 1976, to Democratic challenger Jimmy Carter.

One of the most consistent and enduring pitchers to ever take the mound in Major League Baseball, sidearm-throwing pitcher Jim Bunning played for 17 seasons (1955 to 1971), including an 11-year period where he didn't miss a single scheduled game, according to his Baseball Hall of Fame profile. With nine all-star appearances and 224 wins, Bunning tossed a rare no-hitter in 1958, but mainly pitched to strike out batters. Bunning led the league in strikeouts three times and finished his career with 2,855 KOs, which at the time of his retirement was the second-highest count ever.

According to Politico, Bunning wanted to become a Major League Baseball manager, but he didn't get the call and so he became a sports agent. In 1977, he reluctantly agreed to run for a city council position in Fort Thomas, in his home state of Kentucky, and won the seat. Over the next decade, he'd be elected to the state Senate, make a failed run for the governorship, and make it to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Republican representing Kentucky's 4th District. In 1998, he'd move over to the U.S. Senate, edging out another athlete, former University of Kentucky baseball standout Scott Baesler. After repeated clashes with GOP leaders during the last few years of his Senate career, Bunning decided against running for a third term in 2010.

The Japanese martial art of judo debuted as an official event in the 1964 Summer Olympics, held in Tokyo. By that time, American judoka Ben Nighthorse Campbell had already extensively trained and competed in high school, college, the Air Force, and at Japan's Meiji University, according to The Olympians. Campbell won the U.S. national judo championships in 1961, 1962, and 1963, according to the U.S. Judo Federation, and he took home a gold medal at the 1963 Pan-American Games. He made the 1964 American Olympic team, but an injury he suffered left him out of medal contention.

After purchasing a Colorado ranch in the late 1970s, Campbell was elected several years later to the state House of Representatives, for a four-year term, before moving to the U.S. Capitol in 1987. With a Northern Cheyenne heritage, Campbell was among the first Native Americans to serve in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, per the Encyclopedia of World Biography. Campbell was a member of the former chamber from 1987 to 1993, and the latter from 1993 to 2005, during which time he changed his party affiliation from Democratic to Republican, according to the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

The 1980s were a boom period for the WWE — or as it was known at the time, the WWF — thanks to colorful, TV-friendly wrestling characters like Hulk Hogan, Andre the Giant, Roddy "Rowdy" Piper, and Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Known for elaborate, eye-popping theatrical costumes worn both in the ring as a wrestler, and as a commentator on various WWF broadcasts and events, Ventura squared off against superstars as a solo grappler, but truly made a name for himself as part of the East-West Connection — a tag team with Adrian Adonis.

After calling matches for the then-WWF until 1990, Ventura moved into politics, immediately winning an election the next year for the mayor of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota (per the National Governors Association), which he held for four years. That put him into position to win a three-way race for the Minnesota governor seat in 1998, defeating far-more connected political figures like St. Paul mayor Norm Coleman, and the dynastic Hubert H. Humphrey III. According to The Washington Post, Ventura became the first person from the Reform Party to win a gubernatorial race, as well as the first governor to have had his likeness rendered in an action figure (during his wrestling days).