Donald Rumsfeld as a footballer?

Indeed. Before he would go on to fame (or infamy depending on your political point of view), Donald Rumsfeld was featured in an Ivy League Football Program.

The 1967 University of Pennslyvania v. Princeton Program coinidently happens to have one of our favorite covers on it, featuring the Princeton Tiger mascot holding up a box of Quaker Oats with the face of the Penn mascot of Ben Franklin.

The program also features a two page write-up detailing the career of then Congressman Donald Rumsfeld (Princeton ’54). The 35 year old congressman looks clean-cut as you would expect. Rumsfeld was then in his third term as a congressman from “Illinois’ fashionable North Shore”.

Rummy was the captain of the Tiger 150-pound football team (read: lightweight) and of the wrestling team as a senior. Since the lightweight team and the wrestling team didn’t publish programs, this is a rare feature having the future Defense Secretary appear in a program.

Prior to serving as a congressman he served as a Flight Instructor in the Navy, an organization he described as “the most important entity in the world today”. You can see even then, Don was quite modest!

He goes on to be quoted in the program as saying “I have great interest in Congress as an instrument of government”, which is ironic since he would go on to ignore that particular branch of government while Defense Secretary.