Rockhurst Professor Experiences Royals’ White House Visit Firsthand

For one Rockhurst University professor, spending seven months in Washington, D.C., has been a chance to get a look at the inner workings of the Beltway and American legislative politics.

But on Thursday, he also got a unique view when the national spotlight turned to Kansas City.

Tom Ringenberg, visiting assistant professor of political science at Rockhurst, has been in Washington, D.C., since January as part of the American Political Science Association’s Congressional Fellows Program. He’s experienced the day-to-day life of being part of a congressional staff along with academics, journalists and other experts in a program designed to help professionals from diverse backgrounds and occupations better understand the American legislative process.

Sometimes, that means sitting in on congressional committee hearings. Other times, like Thursday, it means a chance to watch the president of the United States laud the accomplishments of one’s favorite professional baseball team. On July 21, Ringenberg said he got that chance as President Barack Obama welcomed members of the 2015 World Series champion Kansas City Royals to the White House’s East Room.

“The crowd broke out in a ‘Let’s Go Royals!’ chant just before the team entered and before the president was announced,” he wrote. “We did it again as the team was leaving.”

As a student of both the national pastime and American democracy, Ringenberg said he was starstruck by the likes of Eric Hosmer, Salvador Perez and the Royals broadcast team as well as political figures like Kansas City Mayor Sly James, ’80, former Kansas Governor and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, and former Kansas Senator Bob Dole, among others.

“The ceremony was kind of surreal for me,” Ringenberg wrote about the experience. “It was really a meeting of two things I spend a lot of time thinking about — Royals baseball and American politics.”

Afterward, Ringenberg said he had the chance to talk to figures like Dole and James and have his photo taken with the MLB Commissioner’s Trophy.