If you asked Joe Biden one of the downsides of being the President of the United States, his answer might be that nothing he ever says goes under the radar. Any man of Joe Biden’s status naturally risks having all of their speech scrutinized.
So when Mr. President recently made a claim about sacrificing a starting spot on the University of Delaware team to go in a romantic pursuit of his first wife, many people came out refuting his claims.
Joe Biden’s story and its refutations
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Biden recounted in his speech how he met his wife, Neilia, in a New York bar sometime in 1963. He was then a freshman at the University of Delaware while she was schooling at Syracuse. They had an instant spark and began dating. At the time, however, Biden was also committed to the Delaware football team.
What people are refuting in Biden’s story is actually the part where he said he gave up a starting spot on the Delaware football team in order to visit his then-girlfriend every weekend.
The way he put it, it was a choice between having a successful college football career or pursuing his love interest. As it would appear, Biden chose love and he was happily married to Neilia until her tragic death in an automobile crash.
The point of contention is that Biden’s claims about voluntarily giving up his spot on the Delaware football team are actually false. The truth of the story, according to evidence from Biden’s own memoir, is that he had to quit college football due to his poor grades as a freshman.
In his memoir, Biden told the story of how his parents compelled him to leave the football team and focus on his academics after earning a Grade Point Average of just 1.9.
In addition to this, it was pointed out that Biden was actually never a starter in the Delaware football team and, as such, couldn’t have given up his starting spot. In fact, in the period Biden was referring to up until 1972, freshmen could only play on the freshmen team, not as starters in the first team.
As heartwarming as Joe Biden’s story might be, it ends up not being able to hold water. However, the story has helped reveal a detail about the President’s youthful life that many didn’t know until now. That is, he was a football player at one point.