High school hero: Michael Thatcher
Posted on 12/23/2007 1:56:41 PM PST by Stoat
High school hero: Michael Thatcher
Michael Thatcher is continuing to foster Baroness Thatcher's special relationship with the U.S. - by helping his high school American football team into the Texas state finals.
The 18-year-old took a brilliant diving catch from a looping 48-yard pass in front of 10,000 fans last week.
The dramatic moment was broadcast live on TV and one excited commentator exclaimed: "Wow! Can the guy run, can he catch, can he do everything?"
Margaret Thatcher, then Prime Minister, announced Michael's birth in 1989 by declaring outside 10 Downing Street: "We have become a grandmother."
The son of Sir Mark Thatcher and Diane Burgdorf, the Texan-born daughter of a wealthy U.S. car dealer, he spent most of his childhood in South Africa where he enjoyed cricket and hockey.
He started playing American football - which is nicknamed gridiron - three years ago when he moved to Dallas with his mother after his father was charged in South Africa with supporting a bungled coup in Equatorial Guinea.
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Debut: Baby Michael with his parent and grandmother
He admitted to being in "a state of shock" about his catch.
"I'm the kind of guy who gets pretty nervous coming out," he said.
"But as soon as we start running the ball, I'll come into a rhythm and I'm sure the rest of the team is the same way."
Randy Allen, coach of the Scots, the Highland Park high school team in Dallas, praised the teenager's "hard work, dedication and discipline".
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In action: Michael shows off his skill on the pitch
At 6ft 1in and weighing 170lb, Michael is still a little small for his position of running back, but is training to increase his size.
Mr Allen said: "He could be one of the best running backs in the state."
Although Lady Thatcher, 82, appears to have little interest in sport, her late husband, Denis, was a rugby referee and a keen golfer. Michael's parents divorced after nearly 20 years of marriage in April.
His father is only able to see Michael and his 14-year-old sister, Amanda, when they travel abroad because U.S. immigration authorities barred him from entering the country after he pleaded guilty over his role in the Equatorial Guinea affair.
He was fined £265,000 and given a four-year suspended prison sentence.
Sad to hear about his father....
Gridiron is rarely used in the US as a substitute noun for football. The original article in this post was not from the United States. It was from the Daily Mail, a prominent newspaper in London, which is in England, which is in the United Kingdom, which is off the west coast of Europe.
In just about every country on Earth that isn't the US, "football" means something else. It means what we call soccer. So they need another name for American football to avoid confusion.
Now, can anyone tell me WHY the word "gridiron" refers to the game of American football?
Look at the yard lines of an American football field. Look at your barbecue grill. There ya go.
I assume what you meant by that is that only a British-born citizen can be elected prime minister. I am not aware of any such provision in the British constitution.
Britain has a parliamentary democracy -- the original one, actually, what's called the "Westminster model". Brits do not cast a ballot for prime minister. They vote for their local MP, and Parliament elects the PM. In practice, it's the leader of the majority party or the senior party in the governing coalition.
There are foreign-born MPs, and as far as I know they would be eligible to be prime minister if they rose through the ranks to lead one party or another.
Because the lines on the field look like a gridiron. You do know what a gridiron is, don’t you? (It’s the part of the grill upon which you place the steak.)
For those who have forgotten, both Cheney and Bush used to live in the Highland Park district.
Seems to be if he will not pursuit his sport career all the time he can become a prominent politician (like many political family heirs), either in Britain, the US or even South Africa.
A IronMan is maybe something all these countries would need soon, although the first two have had one (his grandmother and Reagan) so maybe it is only fair that South Africa gets him. If the situation in that country will allow it. The new head of the ANC seems to be one to lead it to ruins so maybe someone like him will come along later to fix it.
One question about the born in the US rule. If he is born as an american citizen with american parents, can´t he still not become president because he was not born on US soil? What is then considered US soil? How about all the protectorates in the Pacific, or a military base overseas or something like that?
Merry Christmas all!!
I always chuckle at the phrase describing spoken english in Australia, America, and Briton: Never has one language so divided three countries.
It's not an either-or. JC Watts, Jack Kemp, Connie Mack and Byron White took sports scholarships to get an education, and used sports fame to get into politics. I'm sure I've forgotten others. And that's just in the US.
One question about the born in the US rule. If he is born as an american citizen with american parents, can´t he still not become president because he was not born on US soil? What is then considered US soil? How about all the protectorates in the Pacific, or a military base overseas or something like that?
Difficult to say, exactly, because it's never been tested in court. The general consensus is that if you're born a US citizen on territory controlled by the US, you're in. Possibly a US embassy or military installation -- it's never come up. Some folks claimed that Barry Goldwater wasn't eligible to be president because Arizona was a territory, not a state, when he was born there. Few constitutional scholars took that argument very seriously.
What the Constitution says literally is this:
No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been Fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.
According to the annotations in the USCA version of the Constitution, the common-law definition of "natural born" would pretty much mean that anyone born to a US citizen anywhere would be eligible. Under the prevailing interpretation of the 14th amendment, anyone born in the US, regardless of their parents' citizenship, is a natural-born citizen. So the only people excluded are non-citizens and naturalized citizens.
Gridiron ping...
So glad to hear our state department is working overtime to comply with the wishes of equitorial Guinnea, by keeping Margret Thatcher’s kin out of our country!
Wonder if natural-born citizens include turkey baster and cloned citizens?
Might be an interesting Supreme Court case.
The phrase is natural born. Nowhere does it say (and the Founders could scarcely have imagined) naturally conceived. There might be a semantic case for excluding a native citizen who was delivered by C-section, but I don't think the court is going to invoke the MacBeth clause.
But rarely as a noun. In the phrase "gridiron gang," it's an adjective. "Gridiron shoes," adjective. I have never heard someone say "hey, buddy, I've got beer chilling and chips and salsa, you wanna come over and watch some gridiron on TV?"
That's the US. I've never been to Australia, so for all I know it might be common to call up a friend and say "Eh, mate, I've got Foster's on ice and shrimps on the barbie, wanna watch some gridiron on the telly?"
(It helps if you imagine the last bit in a really bad imitation of a Crocodile Dundee accent)
I'm originally from South Jersey and we pronounced it as 'wooder' also.
Is he an American Citizen? Is he bright? Is he politically a chip of Gradmom’s block? If so is he material for the GOP in 10 to 15 years? Got to think ahead.....
“His father is only able to see Michael and his 14-year-old sister, Amanda, when they travel abroad because U.S. immigration authorities barred him from entering the country after he pleaded guilty over his role in the Equatorial Guinea affair.”
Give us tens of million of your illiterate, your gangs, your drug traffickers, but not the son of one of America’s stauchest allies.
Hard to tell from the posted articles, but as the years roll by we'll be able to gauge the answers to your questions from his forthcoming press coverage.
If he adopts any ideological leanings favored by his Grandmother, he will be cast as a happy-go-lucky dimwit in the media regardless of his true intellectual standing. Scandals will be manufactured and then will magically disappear with no Press apologies after no evidence is found...but not before they dominate headlines for days. Pictures will be Photoshopped to produce the most unflattering results possible and presented as genuine. Statements will be automatically taken out of context, and interviews will be fabricated.
If he takes too many knocks on the head while playing football and ends up as a mainstream, brain-injured Socialist, he'll be swooned over by the media as "brilliant in every way....on the playing field and off". He'll be wined and dined by by East coast elitists and heralded as "a breath of fresh air from the Thatcher family" and "a true visionary". He'll be offered lucrative book and movie deals and will be universally presented as perfect in every way.
Dude. He's eighteen. Rich, good looking, and a football -- excuse me, gridiron -- star.
I don't know the answers to your questions. I doubt he does. He deserves a few years of drinking beer and chasing tail before he knuckles down to that.
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