Emmitt Smith headlines 15 NFL Hall of Famers endorsing Kamala Harris

Katie Mather
·Reporter
·2-min read
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Carnegie Mellon University on Wednesday.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a campaign event at Carnegie Mellon University on Wednesday. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Fifteen professional football Hall of Famers announced a joint endorsement of the Harris-Walz presidential ticket Saturday, praising Vice President Kamala Harris’s “vision of Democracy, Freedom, American world leadership, and equal education and equal opportunities for all Americans.”

Among those who are listed on the endorsement are Emmitt Smith, the all-time NFL rushing leader who won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys in the 1990s; Calvin Johnson — known by fans as “Megatron” during his time with the Detroit Lions; and Alan Page, one of two defensive players to win the MVP award and who later was appointed as a Minnesota State Supreme Court justice until his retirement in 2015.

“America’s top athletes know a bad game plan when they see one — and there’s none worse than Trump’s Project 2025," Harris-Walz Communications Director Michael Tyler said in a statement to Yahoo News. "This endorsement will be critical in making the stakes of this election clear to those hard-to-reach voters and by tapping in the biggest legends of our time, our campaign is making one thing very clear: there is no time to sit on the sidelines."

A week ago, Harris’s campaign celebrated endorsements from over 50 former professional football players, many of them Super Bowl champions. All of the former players came from historically Black colleges and universities — one of which Harris attended — and signed their letter of support to mark National Black Voter Day.

“We encourage all citizens to study the candidates and issues and make their own judgments. We have done so, and are inspired and proud of the leadership that President Harris and Vice-President Walz will provide,” the letter reads.

Professional athletes across all sports have leveraged their fandoms for past elections too. In 2020, high-profile basketball players like Magic Johnson and LeBron James advocated to elect President Biden over Republican nominee Donald Trump. Meanwhile, two-time Pro Bowler Herschel Walker advocated for Trump, even appearing at the Republican National Convention.

This year, Walker endorsed Trump again, alongside former NFL wide receiver Antonio Brown, creator-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former U.S. Olympian Caitlyn Jenner.

Here is the full list of NFL Hall of Famers who signed the endorsement of Harris:

  • Mel Blount

  • Emmitt Smith

  • Kellen Winslow

  • Andre Tippett

  • Marv Levy

  • Alan Page

  • Drew Pearson

  • Kenny Houston

  • Jan Stenerud

  • Calvin Johnson

  • Robert Brazile

  • Willie Roaf

  • Mike Haynes

  • Elvin Bethea

  • Ron Mix

Emmitt Smith won three Super Bowls for the Dallas Cowboys.
Former running back Emmitt Smith, seen here in 2007, won three Super Bowls for the Dallas Cowboys. (Tony Gutierrez/AP)

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