Before Joe Biden Became a Political Star, He Dominated on the Gridiron

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Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this article:

• Politician Joe Biden grew up playing football and taught himself to speak without a stutter.

• Despite decades in public office, he has always found time to enjoy ice cream and cars.

• How the oldest living president has responded to his recent cancer diagnosis.

First elected to office in 1972, Joe Biden has been in the public eye for nearly half a century. Having served in the U.S. Senate for 36 years, followed by two terms as vice president under Barack Obama, he’s no stranger to American voters, who elected him as the 46^th president of the United States in November 2020.

Now 82, Biden is out of politics following the conclusion of his presidential term this January, but he remains in the public eye. This week, a spokesperson revealed Biden’s diagnosis of an aggressive form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. “Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote in a social media post. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places. Thank you for lifting us up with love and support.”

Despite renewed focus on his health, Biden is generally recognized for his landmark career legislation, including the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, as well as his relatable blue-collar roots. He’s a devoted husband to wife Jill Biden and father of Hunter and Ashley Biden. He was equally supportive of his late children Beau and Amy.

Here are 10 more facts you might not know about the former president—not including the viral memes about his perceived “bromance” with Obama or signature aviator sunglasses.

Biden overcame a childhood stutter

Growing up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Biden has said he suffered merciless bullying over a “debilitating” childhood stutter. “I can think of nothing else that has ever stripped me of my dignity as quickly and as profoundly and as thoroughly as when I stuttered in grade school,” he said in a 2008 speech to the American Institute for Stuttering.

As he wrote in his 2008 memoir, a teacher, who was also a nun, even made fun of him, calling him “Mr. Bu-bu-bu-Biden,” leading him to walk out of class one day. His mother, Catherine, later confronted the teacher, he said, telling the woman, “If you ever speak to my son like that again, I’ll come back and rip that bonnet off your head.”

Biden has explained he overcame the stutter by reading and reciting Irish poems, including those by William Butler Yeats, in front of a mirror to monitor and control his facial distortions. To this day, he can still recite long passages of Irish poetry from memory.

He was a high school football star

During his senior year at Delaware’s Archmere Academy in 1960, Biden, who played wide receiver and halfback, was a leading scorer on the private Catholic school’s undefeated football team. “He was the guy that was the main pass catcher,” one of his teammates, Michael Fay, recalled to The New York Times in November 2020. “We were seniors in 1960, so throwing the ball was almost a mortal sin. But he caught seven or eight touchdown passes in eight games, which was a lot for back then.”

In 2008, Biden’s former coach E. John Walsh described Biden as skinny, “but he was one of the best pass receivers I had in 16 years as a coach.”

He was sworn into the Senate in a hospital

Following the December 1972 car accident that claimed the lives of his first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Amy, the newly elected U.S. Senator was sworn into office in January 1973 at the bedsides of his sons, Beau and Hunter, who were badly injured in the crash. Then 30 years old, Biden was one of the youngest senators to be elected, though he’d considered stepping down following the tragedy.

Majority Leader Mike Mansfield eventually convinced him to reconsider, and the Senate passed a resolution allowing him to be sworn in at the Delaware hospital. Even so, the then-single dad vowed that he’d resign if his Senate duties took too much time away from Beau and Hunter and even commuted to Washington on Amtrak. “They can always get another Senator, but my boys cannot get another father,” Biden said.

He and President Obama had weekly lunches

While serving as former President Obama’s vice president starting in 2009, the friends would meet for weekly lunches. As part of their partnership, Obama agreed that his VP would always be the final person he’d speak to before making a big decision. In turn, Biden made a loyalty pledge, per The New York Times. “You make a decision, and I will follow it to my death,” Biden said, according to his friend and advisor Ted Kaufman.

Before leaving office in 2016, Obama referred to his decision to tap Biden for the vice president role as the “single best decision” he’d made, and awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Biden ran for president four times

Biden launched his first presidential bid in 1987, before dropping out of the race later that fall. At the time, his campaign became plagued with scandal after a video surfaced of Biden giving a speech at the Iowa State Fair in which he quoted U.K. Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock without attribution.

“When I stopped trying to explain to everybody and thought it through, the blame fell totally on me,” he wrote of the plagiarism accusations in his 2008 memoir Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics. “Maybe the reporters traveling with me had seen me credit Kinnock over and over, but it was Joe Biden who forgot to credit Kinnock at the State Fair debate.”

Biden then ran for the 2008 Democratic nomination before dropping out after finishing fifth in the January 2008 Iowa caucuses. Then-Senator Obama added Biden to his ticket in August of that year.

The third run proved to be the charm. Biden, then 77, became the oldest person elected to the presidency in November 2020. (Donald Trump broke that record in 2024.) Despite his age and alleged concerns about his declining health—documented in the new book Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again—Biden sought a second term and became the presumptive Democratic nominee in 2024. But soon after a maligned debate performance against Republican nominee Trump, he announced that July he was dropping out of the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris running. “I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” he said.

He is the oldest living president

While he no longer holds the record for oldest president at the time of his inauguration—Trump surpassed him by 159 days this January—Biden is the oldest living president following the death of Jimmy Carter at age 100 in December. Past presidents Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton are all younger than Biden.

He has a pet cat and dogs

The president and first lady weren’t the only Bidens that resided at the White House. They had multiple four-legged family members that accompanied them.

Biden started his presidential term with two German Shepherds named Champ and Major, and he later received another, Commander, as a birthday gift from his brother and sister-in-law. Sadly, Champ—who previously lived with the family in Washington D.C. during Biden’s time as vice president—died in June 2021. Additionally, Major and Commander were removed from the White House in 2021 and 2023, respectively, following multiple biting incidents with staffers and Secret Service.

In the meantime, the Bidens added a cat, Willow, in January 2022. The feline is named after Jill’s hometown of Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, and the subject of Jill’s 2024 illustrated children’s book Willow the White House Cat.

He’s a car and ice cream enthusiast

Biden’s father, Joseph Biden Sr., a one-time car dealership manager, financed a green 1967 Corvette Stingray for him as a wedding gift, and the president still drives the car. His sons even had the engine rebuilt as a Christmas gift. “I love this car. Nothing but incredible memories,” Biden said in an August 2020 social media video. “Every time I get in, I think of my dad and Beau. God, could my dad drive a car.”

According to Politico, Biden remains a “genuine gear-head” and subscribed to Car and Driver alerts on his iPhone.

Chances are Biden might be taking a drive to the nearest ice cream store for his well documented favorite snack. “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. But I eat a lot of ice cream,” Biden said in 2016. Eater reported in April 2020 that his presidential campaign had even spent $10,000 on ice cream—though they were gifts to campaign donors.

During the virtual 2020 Democratic National Convention, several of Biden’s seven grandchildren appeared in a pre-recorded video describing his love for the frozen dessert. “He’s always eating ice cream,” they said, joking that he hides his Breyer’s chocolate and vanilla tubs so “grandma doesn’t see.”

He’s a practicing Catholic

Biden, who carries Beau’s rosary in his pocket and regularly attends Sunday Mass, became the United States’ second Catholic president after John F. Kennedy. During his November 2020 presidential victory speech, he referenced the Catholic hymn “On Eagle’s Wings,” which he said was important to his family and his late son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015.

“It captures the faith that sustains me, which I believe sustains America. And I hope and I hope I can provide some comfort and solace,” he told the crowd before reciting lines from the song. “And he will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun and hold you in the palm of his hand.”

Biden’s favorite movie is Chariots of Fire

In 2008, Biden told Katie Couric that the 1981 British historical sports drama Chariots of Fire was his favorite. “The thing about it, there is a place where someone put personal fame and glory behind principles,” he said. “That to me, is the mark of real heroism, when someone would do that.” Biden added that one of his favorite scenes is one in which one of the movie’s main runners refuses to race on a Sunday due to his religious beliefs.

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