Biden repeats football claim to West Point graduates at commencement address

President Biden repeated an old story at his commencement address to West Point graduates about how he purportedly turned down an appointment to the Naval Academy, where he wanted to play football, because Roger Staubach was there.

President Biden repeated a claim about turning down an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he purportedly wanted to play football, during his commencement address at West Point on Saturday.

Biden told West Point graduates that Republican Sen. J. Caleb Boggs, whom he defeated to become a U.S. senator, had "appointed" him to the Naval Academy years before they ran against each other in 1972.

The president recounted that before his interview, "I found out two days earlier they had a quarterback named Roger Staubach, and a halfback named Joe Bellino. And I said, I'm not going there. I went to Delaware. Not a joke." 

It's the same story Biden told Naval Academy graduates in 2022, when he claimed he had been accepted to the military institution in 1965 but declined to attend. In Saturday's telling of the story, however, Biden did not offer a date.

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President Joe Biden speaks to the Class of 2024 during commencement exercises at West Point on May 25, 2024, in West Point, New York. The West Point graduation is held at Michie Stadium and includes roughly 1,000 cadets graduating and commissioning into the Army as second lieutenants. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Staubach, a Heisman Trophy winner and NFL Hall of Famer, played his first game for Navy in 1962. Bellino, the first Naval Academy player to win the Heisman Trophy, played his last game in January 1961.

Biden played for the high school team at Archmere Academy in Claymont,