Biden Fibs Again About Having Played College Football

On Friday, Vice President Joe Biden again misled an audience about having played football in college at the University of Delaware. 

During his commencement speech at the University of South Carolina, Biden said he played football at Delaware even though there is no proof that he officially played on the team. He did not, though, as he has done in the past, claim that he actually played in a game.

Biden, after talking about University of South Carolina football players like Jedeveon Clowney, who was just drafted No. 1 in the draft, Connor Shaw and Marcus Lattimore said he also played football at Delaware, leading the audience to think he also played at the collegiate level. 

“I played football at Delaware… I’m not supposed to become an aficionado of the Gamecocks,” Biden said. 

As Breitbart News reported, “an almunus interview with Joe Biden in the 1984 University of Delaware yearbook suggests that he may have only played intramural football, as he describes himself as having played “football and baseball intramurals.” In addition, on fanbase.com, a site that archives college football rosters, Biden is not listed on Delaware’s 1961, 1962, 1963, or 1964 football rosters. Biden attended Delaware University from 1961 to 1965 and graduated in 1965 with a double major in history and political science”: 

In his memoir, Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics, which was released on August 25, 2008, Biden, on page 26 of the book, writes: “When my first semester grades came out, my mom and dad told me I wouldn’t be playing football.”

Biden wrote that in the first semester of his junior year, which was in 1963, he decided to take “another run at the football team” even though he “hadn’t played for two years.”

On page 27, Biden claims he “surprised his coaches by moving up the depth chart fast” and, after the annual spring game that April, it looked like I had a shot to start at defensive back.”

He wrote he “couldn’t wait for next September” and “could almost see the fall season unfold in my head” until he headed to Florida for spring break “after our last practice.” 

During spring break, Biden met Neilia Hunter, who would later become his first wife, and “fell ass over tin cup in love — at first sight.”

On pages 32-33, Biden writes he was so in love with Hunter he had to decide “about football.”  

Biden wrote he “realized that if I played football, my weekends were taken” and he wouldn’t see “much of Neilia in September, October, November … into December if we made the playoffs”:

I called the coach a few weeks before preseason started. “Coach, I’m not coming.” 

“Who is this?”

“It’s Joe Biden, Coach. I’m not going to play this season.”

“Biden!? You realize you’ve got a shot to play this year?”

“I know, Coach, but I’m not coming. I’m not playing…. See, I met this girl, and she’s at Syracuse–“

Bzzzzzzzzzz was all I could hear. He’d hung up. 

The only reference to Biden ever having played college football in any formal capacity is a September 5, 2008 article in the University of Delaware’s online news service, UDaily, in which Biden is the lone source:

Joe Biden once said he came to the University of Delaware in 1961 as a “half-baked halfback,” playing on the freshman football team that year under the late Scotty Duncan, and the Democratic vice presidential candidate remains a big fan of the Fightin’ Blue Hens.

But even this account is doubtful, because on page 162 in the sports section of Delaware University’s 1961 yearbook, Biden is not listed on the freshman football team’s roster. 

Biden has exaggerated other aspects of his college record in the past, misstating the number of degrees he obtained and how well he did in law school. He has admitted to plagiarizing a paper while attending Syracuse University College of Law. 

Biden also withdrew from his 1988 campaign for president when he was caught plagiarizing British politician Neil Kinnock’s words and ideas on the stump during the Democratic primary.