Exercising Executive Orders

From the looks of the assorted golf clubs, medicine balls, barbells, tackle boxes, running shoes and baseballs gathered at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, you would think 20th century presidents never worked.

Turns out, promoting play is part of their work.

Such is the premise of a new exhibit, “Flexing the Nation’s Muscle: Presidents, Physical Fitness and Sports in the American Century,” which opens today and runs through Jan. 4 at the Reagan library near Simi Valley.

With 110 artifacts, the exhibit follows the sports habits of presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton as they have affected national fitness and America’s growth as a superpower.

Created by the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and the National Archives and Records Administration, the traveling exhibit premiered in June 1996 in Washington, D.C., and has attracted about 1 million visitors since.

The exhibit’s draw is its focus on a fit America--both physically and politically, said Reagan library Director Mark A. Hunt.

“At the beginning of the 20th century, under Teddy Roosevelt, we were beginning to project an image of world power that hadn’t been there before,” Hunt said. “While we vacillated between isolationism and being a world power during World War I, there was always this idea of us being a vigorous new world and a young nation. Ultimately, that projects an image of youth and health.”

As testament to the presidents’ concerns about physical fitness, the exhibit merges text and toys to document both their personal regimens and their public actions.

Some of the items are pure fun: a kitschy T-shirt depicting George Bush in fatigues about to whack a golf ball in the image of Gulf War foe Saddam Hussein; Ronald Reagan’s black ostrich cowboy boots embossed with the presidential seal; Clinton’s baseball bat used by Baltimore Oriole Cal Ripken Jr. when he broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played.

Others have a deeper meaning.

Take the “Hooverball,” which the dapper Herbert Hoover used to keep himself and his cabinet fit. Most mornings, Hoover and company would pull out the 10-pound, black leather medicine ball and play a game resembling volleyball, but without spiking.

Excerpts from his writings detail Roosevelt’s transformation from a pallid, sickly boy to a “Bull Moose” of a man, who hunted big game and hiked. The vigorous Roosevelt once rode 98 miles on horseback in a day to prove that fitness requirements for American military troops were reasonable.

An avid golfer, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created the President’s Council on Youth Fitness after surveying the flabby condition of America’s youth.

Among the exhibit’s most poignant pieces are the metal and leather leg braces used by polio-stricken Franklin Delano Roosevelt, said show curator Clay R. Bauske of the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Mo.

“They really make people think,” he said. “FDR was such a powerful president--and certainly considered one of the greatest presidents of American history--yet he was handicapped and did everything while handicapped.”

Although Franklin Roosevelt couldn’t use his legs, he built a powerful upper body by wheeling his wheelchair, swimming and playing water polo.

“I think the physical fitness of American people is very cyclical,” Bauske said. “People have to be reminded all the time of the importance of good physical fitness and health. That’s where the president can be very effective in publicizing it. . . . Look, if the president has time to take off and do physical activity, pretty much anyone can do it.”