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Kansas City Chiefs kicker and devout Catholic Harrison Butker stood alongside President Trump last Thursday to relaunch the Presidential Fitness Test.
Butker is a well-known champion of traditional Catholicism and family values. During a 2024 commencement address at Benedictine College, he told the graduating students: “I'm on the stage today and able to be the man I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation,” adding that his wife “would be the first to say that her life truly started when she started living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”
Despite criticism from the secular press and various activist groups for his praise of motherhood—with the NFL’s senior vice president and chief diversity and inclusion officer stating: “His views are not those of the NFL as an organisation”—Butker was praised in the Catholic media for having the courage to stand up for traditional values.
Lila Rose, the well-known pro-life advocate and founder of Live Action, said that while she understood the criticism from the mainstream press, “his main point about appreciating his wife and her valuing of her role as homemaker was beautiful.”
Butker also consistently uses his platform to promote Catholic teachings, regularly posting quotes from the Bible and the Saints on X. He openly endorsed Donald Trump in 2024, writing on 5 November: “Christians! Head to the polls today. Vote to keep God in America. Vote President Trump.”
Butker was joined at the White House by LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and Lawrence Taylor, who played 13 seasons in the NFL for the New York Giants.
The Presidential Fitness Test had been in use across the US from the 1950s until 2013, when it was discontinued under Barack Obama’s presidency over concerns of “body shaming.” The test included push-ups, sit-ups, a 30-foot shuttle run, the V-seat reach, and a one-mile run.
Butker will reportedly help promote the revived programme through public appearances and media campaigns.
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