But there was a second inspiration at play. This weekend marks the start of the fall's NCAA football season, and my colleague Brad Slager's story does a great job of ushering us all in, with reminders on some big upheavals in conferences carrying over from the off-season; he fills us in on what conventional wisdom is on which the best collegiate teams will be.

READ MORE: NCAA Football Season Kicks off With Serious Changes: New Alignments, Preseason Polling

WATCH: RFK Jr. Releases a Series of Short, Inspiring Ads About America, the New One Featuring JFK

The website Old School Trainer reported on how the concept of testing youth in physical education classes got its start. It wasn't with JFK, surprisingly:

....In 1953, researchers Dr. Hans Kraus and Bonnie Prudden conducted a significant study evaluating the fitness level of U.S. students.

Their research involved administering the "Kraus-Weber Test", a pass-fail fitness assessment comprising six basic exercises such as sit-ups and leg lifts, to students in the U.S., Switzerland, Italy, and Austria.

[President Dwight D.] Eisenhower's President's Executive Order 10673, issued on July 16, 1956, officially launched the Council on Youth Fitness.

Surprisingly, nearly 60 percent of U.S. students failed at least one of the test exercises. This discovery troubled Eisenhower, as it suggested that American youth might be unfit for military service, adding a hint of patriotic concern to the entire initiative.

But once in the White House, Kennedy put his stamp on the program, swiftly swapping out the name of Eisenhower's 1956 agency, "President's Council on Youth Fitness" for "President's Council on Physical Fitness." He didn't want it just to be about schoolchildren getting healthy but the entire family. This is where college football comes in. 

Mar. 24, 1961 - Charles (Bud) Wilkinson (right), head football coach at the University of Oklahoma, was named by President Kennedy today as a special consultant on youth fitness. He will serve without pay.#football #ncaa #sports #physicalfitness #workout pic.twitter.com/lM7G58e2fm

— Tweets from the 1960s (@RealTime1960s) March 24, 2021

To lead his initiative, JFK tapped Oklahoma's legendary head football coach, Charles "Bud" Wilkinson. Some background:

His Sooner teams earned a 145–29–4 record, including five undefeated seasons, three national championships, and a national record of forty-seven consecutive games without a defeat from 1953 through 1957. His 1948–50 teams won thirty-one straight, and his Sooners won national championships in 1950, 1955, and 1956. Oklahoma also won fourteen conference championships under Wilkinson, plus seven of nine bowl games.

....

[D]uring the Nixon administration he was a White House advisor. Wilkinson coached the St. Louis Cardinals in the National Football League during the 1978–79 seasons and later served as a sports analyst and broadcaster for ABC and ESPN. 

According to the Kennedy Library archives:

Only a month after the inauguration, the new administration convened a conference on physical fitness, reorganized the President's Council on Youth Fitness, and chose a new director, Charles "Bud" Wilkinson, a highly successful University of Oklahoma football coach. True to Kennedy's style, the new executive for the council was named a special consultant to the president. 

...

In late 1962, President Kennedy discovered an executive order from Theodore Roosevelt challenging US Marine officers to finish fifty miles in twenty hours.

There was also this, which stirred a faint memory from late 1970s gym classes this writer attended as a child:

The oddest contribution to the effort may have been the "Chicken Fat" song. Meredith Willson, creator of The Music Man, wrote the song. It was sung by Robert Preston, the star of the musical. "Chicken Fat" was produced in a three-minute, radio-friendly version and a six-minute version to accompany schoolchildren during workout routines.

Remember this?

In July '62, Pres. Kennedy gave a report card on Wilkinson's progress, in an article titled, "The Vigor We Need." He wrote, in part:

When a citizen of Greece returned home after a victory in the Olympic Games he was escorted triumphally into the city through a hole which had been ripped in its wall. Thus the city-state was symbolically assured that any polls possessed of such a hero had no need of a wall to defend it. Although we may be sure that the wall was repaired when a hostile army threatened, the symbolic act had a meaning which is as true for the America of today as it was for the ancient Greeks....

First, we reorganized the President's Council on Youth fitness and placed that council under Special Presidential Consultant Charles B. (Bud) Wilkinson, football coach of the University of Oklahoma. Under Mr. Wilkinson's extraordinarily able leadership the council developed--in cooperation with 19 leading school and medical organizations-the basic concepts for a program of physical fitness now in use by more than half the country's public schools.

In addition, the council helped to initiate special pilot fitness projects, involving more than 200,000 students in five States. The results were a dramatic proof of the value of carefully designed school physical fitness programs. After only six weeks 25 percent of the students who had failed the basic fitness test passed. A similar gain was measured each succeeding 6 weeks until, by the end of the school year, an average of 80 percent of those who had failed were able to pass. There could be no more effective proof of the fact that efforts by local school authorities can vastly improve the physical fitness level of America's youth.

Secondly, the council has designed a nationwide campaign to alert Americans to physical fitness needs and provide them with the information needed to conduct fitness programs. More than 340,000 copies of the school physical fitness program have been distributed; and during the past school year the number of schools offering such a program rose by 13 percent. The Advertising Council, private film makers and professional athletic organizations have joined campaigns to increase public attention to physical fitness needs, and a conference of governors' representatives, with 44 States represented, was held last April to enlist the help of State Governments in this nationwide effort.

Third, the council is now going forward with a wide range of physical fitness activities in the fields of recreation and health education. Special programs are being developed for college students and for adults. A series of recommendations has been made to leaders of the armed forces, and those recommendations are now being put into effect.

You can read the full letter here.

The program continues to this day, under the mantle of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). You can find a summary of every administration's timeline, along with the appointed chairmen and executive directors, here. And here's one fun bit of trivia they share, involving RFK Jr's dad, the late Robert F. Kennedy: 

With the aid of the Advertising Council, a nationwide public service advertising campaign was launched with President Kennedy promoting taking the 50 mile hikes previously required of U.S. Marine officers. His brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, completed the challenge in the snow and slush wearing dress shoes.

People might recall that the chairman of the initiative during the George H. W. Bush administration was Arnold Schwarzenegger (1990-92). In an example of art imitating life, the fictional presidential fill-in character, who was the title character in "Dave" (1993), had a memorable interaction with the former champion bodybuilder, action star, and future California, ahem, "governator": 

My hope is that this was as interesting a journey into America's physical fitness past for you all as it was for me. 

This brief clip, from "The Motivation Factor," a 90-minute documentary on physical fitness not only includes a longer part of the speech from Bobby Kennedy Jr.'s ad, but also has clips showing one inspiration for the fitness council, California's Sierra High School, in action. It also includes interviews with several of the students as adults, urging people to reinvigorate Pres. Kennedy's vision. Enjoy!