President Donald Trump spent the morning huddling with NCAA championship teams, posing for photos with each group of athletes in spots across the White House grounds.
Trump struck a stance with the Penn State wrestling delegation, and tossed a red, white and blue volleyball with the Ohio State University men’s team.
Maryland lacrosse player Dylan Maltz, who hails from Ashburn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., earned a portrait of his own with the president by creatively showing up in a tie promoting Trump’s candidacy in 2016.
Missing from game day at the White House were two prominent sports brands – the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team and the South Carolina women’s basketball team.
President Donald Trump spent the morning huddling with NCAA championship teams at the White House, posing for photos with each group of athletes in spots across the White House grounds. He’s seen here with the Penn State men’s wrestling delegation
Maryland lacrosse player Dylan Maltz, who hails from Ashburn, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., earned a portrait of his own with Trump by creatively showing up in a tie promoting the Trump’s candidacy for president in 2016
Trump is seen praying with the Oklahoma Women’s Softball team in the East Room of the White House during their visit on Friday
Trump makes a ‘U’ symbol with Utah Skiing team as he greets members of Championship NCAA teams at the White House
Trump shakes the hand of a memer of the University of Washington Women’s Rowing team
Trump jovially met with other NCAA teams on the South Lawn and various rooms of the White House in their absence on Friday.
With the Utah skiing team, he contorted his pointer fingers and thumbs into a ‘U’ shape for their photo together.
He and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos prayed with the Oklahoma Women’s Softball Team in the White House’s East Room.
‘A lot of great athletes,’ he told the Maryland Women’s lacrosse team, jesting that the men and women of the school – both of whom were at the top of their respective divisions – should play each other.
In the Red Room of the White House, the president plugged the Second Amendment as he met the West Virginia Rifle team.
‘Second Amendment, right? Save the Second Amendment!’ the president said.
He also commented that West Virginia has a ‘great governor’ and is ‘doing well.’
The state’s Democratic governor, Jim Justice, announced a party switch to Republican at a Trump rally in the state this past August.
The absence of the two Carolina sports teams meant neither of the NCAA basketball champions were present at the ceremony this year.
The Tarheels said they ‘were fine with going,’ but they couldn’t agree on a date with the White House, a team spokesman said.
‘We tried about eight or nine dates and between they couldn’t work out that date, we couldn’t work out that date, so – we would have liked to have gone, but not going,’ spokesman Steve Kirschner told the News Observer in late September.
UNC was not invited to attend a solo White House ceremony when it won the championship title in 2005 during George W. Bush’s presidency, the team’s coach, Roy Williams, recalled earlier this year.
It was invited to a cattle-call event like the one at the White House on Friday and turned down the invitation because many of the players were unavailable to attend, Williams said.
The team showed up at the White House in 2009 when it won the NCAA title to be feted on stage by then-President Barack Obama.
This year when the Tarheels were named the 2017 NCAA champs, an appearance at the White House was assumed to be a non-starter. Williams had disparaged Trump’s behavior on Twitter during a news conference in March.
‘You know, our president tweets out more bulls*** than anybody I’ve ever seen,’ Williams said.
President Donald Trump receives a jersey bearing the title ‘MR. PRESIDENT’ from the Penn State women’s rugby team
Trump tossed a volleyball into the air while congratulating members of Ohio State University’s men’s volleyball team on the South Lawn of the White House
Trump also received a jersey from University of Maryland women’s lacrosse team
He also stated after the Tarheel’s victory in the men’s basketball championship that the ‘office of the presidency of the United States is the most fantastic place you can be’ and asked to think about accepting an invitation.
The South Carolina women’s team had said it would be interested in attending a White House event, but declined to attend Friday’s ceremony after it took Trump’s team six months to make contact.
‘We haven’t gotten an invitation yet and that in itself speaks volumes,’ Gamecocks Coach Dawn Staley told the Associated Press at the end of September.
Staley had said the night her team won that they would attend a White House event.
‘It’s what it stands for. It’s what national champions do,’ she said then.
Yesterday, Staley said in a statement that her team would not come to Washington for a photo op with Trump.
‘We did hear from the White House about attending tomorrow’s event, but we will not be able to attend,’ she said. ‘As I’ve been saying since our practices for this season started, all of our focus is on the season ahead. The only invitation we are thinking about is to the 2018 NCAA Tournament.’