National Football Foundation

A true American icon, John H. Glenn, Jr., has defined himself as a leader in every step of his life. The holder of countless titles, including soldier, pilot, pioneering NASA astronaut, corporate executive, and U.S. Senator, his accomplishments place him in rarefied company, becoming the 53rd recipient of the National Football Foundation's Gold Medal, the organization's highest honor. 

The son of a plumber, Glenn grew up in New Concord, Ohio before attending nearby Muskingum College where he excelled as a football student-athlete. As a junior, he made a decision that would define the rest of his life by enrolling in a Civilian Pilot Training program. He earned his pilot's license in the spring of 1941, and following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he entered the Naval Aviation Cadet Program in March of 1942. Commissioned in the Marine Corps in 1943, Glenn would go on to fly 149 combat missions during World War II and the Korean War, claiming the Distinguished Flying Cross on six occasions and rising to the rank of Colonel. 

Following Korea, Glenn attended the Test Pilot School at the Naval Air Test Center, and in 1957 he set a transcontinental speed record from Los Angeles to New York, crossing the continent in 3 hours and 23 minutes as part of "Project Bullet." His accomplishments led to his selection as a Project Mercury Astronaut, and on February 20, 1962, he flew on Mercury-6, becoming the first American to orbit the Earth at a breathtaking 17,500 miles per hour. With the Cold War in full force, Glenn's accomplishments made him one of the national heroes of the space race, providing him a launching pad for his political career. After several unsuccessful forays on the campaign trail, interspersed with a career as a board member and president of Royal Crown Cola and overseeing four Holiday Inn franchises, Glenn won election in 1974 to his first term to the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Ohio. He would win three more terms during his 24-year Senate career before his retirement in 1999.

 The chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee in the U.S. Senate, he became known as an advocate of a streamlined federal government. He also severed on the Armed Services committee where he established himself as the expert in Congress on the issue of nuclear proliferation, advocating for the prevention of the assembling of nuclear weapons by foreign nations. On the short list of leaders in the Democratic Party, he received consideration for the vice presidential nomination three times and ran in the Democratic primaries as a presidential candidate in 1984. Nearly 40 years after his Mercury-6 flight, Glenn returned to space by joining the crew of the Space Shuttle Discovery on October 29, 1998 and becoming the oldest person ever in space at the age of 77. 

A highly decorated military hero, Glenn's other awards include the United Nations Service Medal, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal, the Congressional Space Medal of Honor, and the NCAA Theodore Roosevelt Award. In March 1999, NASA renamed its Cleveland center the "John H. Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field" in his honor. Glenn and his wife founded the John and Annie Glenn Institute for Public Service and Public Policy at Ohio State University to inspire citizenship and leadership.