Before it became a content farm full of AI generated clickbait, Sports Illustrated was at one point a serious publication where major political figures discussed issues of national importance.
That was the case in December of 1960, when Sports Illustrated featured an article from John F. Kennedy, who was the president-elect at the time. The article was entitled “The Soft American,” and it addressed the crisis in masculinity that America was experiencing in the postwar period, as men took office jobs and adjusted to suburban life. In the article, Kennedy called on men to maintain their physical and mental fitness because the strength of the country depended on it. As Kennedy put it, “The knowledge that the physical well-being of the citizen is an important foundation for the vigor and vitality of all the activities of the nation, is as old as Western civilization itself.” It was a sentiment you’re unlikely to hear from politicians these days, expressed with an eloquence and maturity of thought and speech that you’re even less likely to hear.
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