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Presidential endorsements the hot sport of summer

Barbara Barker

2:55 PM EDT, June 23, 2008

The NBA season is over. Tiger Woods is done for the year. And the Olympic Games don't get cooking until August.

Besides baseball, a couple of tennis matches and the early position wars of NFL training camp, what else will people be tracking this summer?

How about presidential endorsements?

Yes, for the first time in more than a generation, athletes and former athletes are actually coming out and telling people whom they plan to pull the lever for next November. Michael Jordan. Curt Schilling. Greg Oden. All have come out over the last few months and endorsed a presidential candidate.

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Of course, this used to be something that happened all the time with many athletes wearing the politics on their sleeves.

Long before Sean Jean was raising his fist in Times Square in order to sell clothing, Tommie Smith and John Carlos gave their black power salute at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Muhammad Ali was so against the Vietnam War that he refused induction into the army. And Washington Redskins lineman Ray Schoenke organized 400 athletes to support George McGovern's 1972 campaign despite the fact that his coach, George Allen, was a big supporter of McGovern's opponent, Richard Nixon.

Over the past two decades, however, most athletes have been more interested in what happens on Madison Avenue than Pennsylvania Avenue, consistently picking commerce over politics. This attitude is probably best summarized by Jordan's comment years ago when asked why he wouldn't join North Carolina coach Dean Smith in endorsing a Democrat running against Jesse Helms. "Republicans buy shoes too," Jordan explained.

Now, I'm the last one to think that the political leanings of athletes should have any influence whatsoever on how I or anyone else votes. In fact, there are few groups of people I have less in common with: I'm not in my 20s, I don't make an obscene amount of money and my fan club is limited to my immediate family plus a few close friends whom I beg to read me.

Yet, like it or not, athletes are celebrities and celebrities have a huge amount of public influence, especially over younger voters. And, that's one reason why I find it exciting that some are coming out and saying who they are voting for, not matter who they are voting for. Just by talking about voting, they may get some of the young, some of the politically disaffected involved in the election process.

Of course, there are some obvious reasons why athletes are deciding to risk controversy and throw their hat into the political ring - with the two biggest being the war and the fact that this is the first time a black man is a major political party candidate.

And, looking at a Sports Illustrated poll of professional athletes who said they were registered to vote from last March - when Hillary Clinton was still in the race - it's likely that race plays a significant role in voting behavior. In the NBA, respondents favored Barack Obama over John McCain nearly 8-to-1. While in the NHL, respondents favored McCain over Obama, 4-to-1.

While these respondents were guaranteed anonymity, some are deciding to use their names to back their candidate. Former NFL safety Jack Brewer, for example, has started organizing a network of current and former NFL players who support Obama while Schilling has publicly campaigned for McCain.

Though the race has just begun, here are some athletes and sports figures who already have publicly endorsed a candidate. Please feel free to add.

Endorsing Barack Obama: Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Greg Oden, Chad Johnson, Emmitt Smith and Lovie Smith.

Endorsing John McCain: Jason Sehorn and Curt Schilling.