Written by Cindy Boren at WashingtonPost.com
Donald Trump has promised a different sort of Republican National Convention next week, boasting that his lineup would include A-list sports stars.
Ben Roethlisberger and Mike Ditka may have bailed on the chance to address delegates and the nation before Trump presumably is chosen as the party’s nominee for president, but Tim Tebow, Dana White and Natalie Gulbis are on board. Others whom Trump previously had named as speakers are not on thelineup obtained by the New York Times. Absent from the schedule, which the Times says it confirmed with two sources, are names formerly trumpeted by the presumptive nominee: Don King, Mike Tyson along with Ditka and Roethlisberger.
Nor will Tom Brady, the New England Patriots quarterback who has called Trump “a good friend of mine” and made headlines when a “Make America Great Again” cap was spotted in his locker last season, be present. Brady won’t endorse Trump, either. Trump told WEEI Radio in Boston earlier this month that he had waved Brady off.
“He’s got sponsors, he’s got all of his different things that he has to do,” Trump said, “and I told him not to.”
Tebow, who won two national championships at Florida and the Heisman Trophy, is a free agent who still hopes to return to the NFL. A devout Christian who, in the meantime, focuses on his charitable and TV work, Tebow will kick things off July 21, the night on which Trump presumably will accept the nomination in the convention’s closing speech.
Tebow, a conservative, has mused about running for political office one day, saying in March that it was an idea he’s mulling. “If there’s a chance you can make a difference someday in something, then that would be intriguing,” he told Ainsley Earhardt on “Fox and Friends.”
Tebow, who turns 29 next month, could probably get elected to any office he chooses in Florida and that wouldn’t be a bad springboard to greater, more oval-ly-shaped offices. He has a real mission “to bring faith, hope and love to those needing a brighter day in their darkest hour of need” through his foundation.
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