Interior Dept compares Roosevelt saving football to Trump’s sports orders

The U.S. Department of the Interior has addressed a recent report that Secretary Doug Burgum is pushing for former President Teddy Roosevelt to be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

In a statement to Fox News Digital, the department compared Roosevelt’s impact in saving American football to President Donald Trump’s recent executive action to reform college sports.

The New York Post reported Saturday that Burgum made the comments about Roosevelt’s Hall of Fame candidacy at a Bank of America reception on Thursday.

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NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a press conference after Super Bowl LX at Moscone Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Feb. 9, 2026. (Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire)

“Roger Goodell was in the White House in the Oval Office, I had a chance to be with him there, because we, the National Park Service, control the National Mall,” Burgum reportedly said. “The draft for the NFL is being held on the Mall a year from now (and) the Capitol will be in the background.

“Keep it a secret. Keep your fingers crossed, but I think we’re going to see Theodore Roosevelt inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame….it’s going to be announced on the Mall when Roger Goodell is conducting the draft.”

Teddy Roosevelt is credited with saving football in 1905–1906 by forcing college leaders to reform the game’s rules after frequent injury-related deaths of players. 

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President Donald Trump holds up a signed executive order during the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy presentation with the Navy Midshipmen football team in the East Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on March 20, 2026. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP)

The reforms led to the creation of the forward pass and the banning of dangerous formations.

Meanwhile, Trump has passed several executive orders aimed at regulating NIL, while protecting non-revenue sports and women’s sports amid growing financial pressure for universities to invest in revenue programs like football and basketball.

Trump signed executive order on April 3 titled “Urgent National Action to Save College Sports,” aimed at curbing the influence of NIL collectives and transfer portal freedom. The order proposes strict five-year eligibility limits, caps transfers, and threatens to pull federal funding from institutions not following NCAA rules to establish a uniform national framework.

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President Donald Trump arrives at a roundtable discussion on college sports in the East Room of the White House, Friday, March 6, 2026, in Washington. (Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo)

Trump has also taken executive action to mandate that revenue-sharing models implemented by universities must preserve or expand scholarships and opportunities for women’s and Olympic sports, preventing them from being reduced to pay football or basketball players.

In February of last year, trump signed the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order that redefined Title IX to mean that “sex” is based on reproductive biology and genetics at birth. This explicitly banned transgender women from competing in women’s college sports.

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