Trump appoints supporters, including former Eagles player Herschel Walker, to presidential sports council

Walker has publicly defended Trump. Another appointee, a Bucks County athletic club owner, invited Trump to hold a rally in 2016.

In this March 8, 1984, file photo, Donald Trump shakes hands with Herschel Walker in New York after an agreement on a four-year contract with the New Jersey Generals USFL football team.Read moreDave Pickoff / Associated Press

by Michael Boren

Published May 4, 2018, 5:09 p.m. ET

President Trump has appointed one of his supporters, former Eagles player Herschel Walker, to the President's Council on Sport, Fitness, and Nutrition, which creates initiatives to encourage Americans to stay healthy and exercise.

Trump also appointed Samuel James Worthington, Jr., the owner of an athletic club in Bucks County; Stephen Soloway, a doctor in South Jersey; and New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, among others, to the panel.

Those members of the panel all have ties to Trump and the Republican Party. Here is more information on Walker and the two other local appointees:

Herschel Walker

Walker won the Heisman Trophy in 1982 as a Georgia junior running back. He played 15 seasons of professional football, including 1992 through 1994 with the Eagles, and retired at the end of the 1997 NFL season. In 2011, when he was 48, he suggested he could still play in the NFL.

Walker has been an outspoken supporter of Trump. He also appeared on Trump's reality show "The Celebrity Apprentice."

Samuel James Worthington, Jr.

Worthington is the owner of Newtown Athletic Club, where Trump held a rally as a presidential candidate in October 2016. Worthington also served as a delegate from Pennsylvania at the Republican National Convention that year.

In a statement, Worthington said he was "honored" to be appointed to the council.

Worthington's son, James, made headlines in 2014 for biting off a man's ear during a St. Patrick's Day brawl, as the Bucks County Courier Times reported. The son was sentenced to at least three years in state prison.

Stephen Soloway

Soloway specializes in arthritis and osteoporosis treatment and has an office in Vineland, Cumberland County. Philadelphia Magazine named him one of the region's top doctors, and his website touts that he has patients "from six countries and many U.S. cities."

Soloway has also bought dozens of Trump properties, according to The Globe and Mail. He was enlisted to help raise funds for Trump during the 2016 election, according to Politico.