Jocks in Chief: From Football Stars and Brawlers, to Feats of Strength and Iron Butt, a Complete Ranking of the Most Athletic Pr

From the author of Heart Over Height with 3x NBA Dunk Champ Nate Robinson and Forces of Character with 3x Super Bowl Champion and Fighter Pilot, Chad Hennings, comes a groundbreaking new project by Jon Finkel. For the first time in the history of the United States, this book compiles a comprehensive, complete and official ranking of our presidents based on their skills as athletes. Amazingly, in our never-ending quest to quantify, qualify, list and rank everything in the known universe, our best and brightest stat geeks have thus far ignored the athletic accomplishments of our commanders-in-chief. This egregious oversight ends now. Which president saved 77 lives as a lifeguard? Which one's lucky handball is still sitting in the Smithsonian over a century after he last played with it? Which president invented a sport? Or practiced jiu-jitsu three afternoons a week while in office? Or was an NCAA champion? The answers to these questions (in order: Reagan, Lincoln, Hoover, T. Roosevelt, Ford) don't even scratch the surface of the athletic information in this book, which is why I harnessed the power of statistics and the spirit of sabermetrics to create a system to properly crown one of our presidents king of the athletic arena. To maintain consistency with other ranking systems, and to compete with the likes of ERA, WAR, VORP and all the others, this ranking metric is called PAS, short for President Athlete Score. In conversation, it could be used something like, "Dude, no way Woodrow Wilson was a better athlete than Ronald Reagan, have you seen their PAS rankings? It's not even close " The components of the PAS ranking are as follows, with each president receiving either a 1 (worst) or a 5 (best) in a particular category. The highest possible score is a 25. Executive Power: Ranks a president's physical strength. Running Ability: Ranks a president's physical fitness and cardio. Weighs and Means: Ranks how fit a president stayed once in office. Executive Experience: Ranks the athletic accomplishments of a president. Mettle of Honor: Ranks a president's athletic toughness and endurance (for many of our earlier presidents, this involved military accomplishments in lieu of organized sports). The book is divided into two parts: Part I: Off the Ballot The first part of the book features the presidents that fall in the bottom half of the rankings and they've been divided up into three chapters: Commanders in Beef, The Van Buren Boys, and Lame Ducks. Part II: The Contenders This section features the presidents in the top half of the rankings, culminating in the revealing of our most athletic president. This section will be divided into four chapters: Fit for Office, National Treasures, Sultans of the Smithsonian and Mount Rushmore - The Athletes.

Jon Finkel has written for Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, Muscle & Fitness, GQ, Details, The New York Times, ComedyCentral.com, Yahoo! Sports’ ThePostGame.com and many more. Jon has interviewed hundreds of athletes and written cover stories, columns and features on everyone from Hall of Famers to Olympic champions to Wiffle ball stars. Jon is the author of Heart Over Height with 3x NBA Slam Dunk Champion Nate Robinson, as well as the hit fatherhood book, The Dadvantage - Stay in Shape on No Sleep with No Time and No Equipment. He authored The Three Dollar Scholar - Awesome Advice for Acing Life’s Major Decisions and Mindless Debates, as well as all twelve titles in the the award-winning Greatest Stars of the NBA book series. His previous book, Forces of Character, with 3x Super Bowl Champion and Fighter Pilot, Chad Hennings, was released in the Fall of 2015. For more information on Jon and his books, visit: www.jonfinkel.com Follow him on Twitter at: @Jon_Finkel