TRC Co-Director Michael Cullinane Set to Release Fifth Book

Dr. Micheal Cullinane, the current co-director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center (TRC), Walton Chair of Theodore Roosevelt Studies will release his fifth book on May 1st after a decade of research and writing. Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet explore the contributions of Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Tennis Cabinet”, an eclectic inner circle that helped the president change the nation. “This is the real way the presidency works. It’s messy. It’s about the networks and the friends that surround the chief executive. And it’s fun. Amidst all the seriousness of American politics are moments of levity and friendship,” said Dr. Cullinane.

While writing his previous book on TR, Dr. Cullinane began to identify the characters in the president life from a photo taken in the final days of his administration. “From there, I began research every collection of personal papers. Some of them had small collections; others like Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot had thousands of boxes of archival material. My advice to future scholars: don’t take on a project like this,” Dr. Cullinane explained. The book explores over thirty of TR’s friends he played tennis with.

Dr. Cullinane’s favorite part of the research process was learning about TR’s tennis matches. TR played hard but also out of enjoyment and as a form of stress relief from the constant government work. “The people who played with TR shaped government policy. If you couldn’t keep up with the president physically, you lost access to the tennis court,” noted Dr. Cullinane. “He only invited athletic friends, and one tennis court acolyte even hired a personal trainer to make sure he was ready for the matches.”

From these tennis matches the Tennis Court formed but never met as a group until TR’s final days of his administration, when the photo that inspired Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet was taken. “They were the beating heart of the administration. Roosevelt would have accomplished hardly anything without them. It’s about time they had their moment in the history books,” said Dr. Cullinane. Theodore Roosevelt and the Tennis Cabinet is currently available for pre-order through the University of Nebraska Press and Amazon.

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Written by Sarah Griffis – DSU HF Content Writer

More about Dr. Micheal Cullinane

Alongside his roles with the TRC and Dickinson State University (DSU), Dr. Cullinane is a Public Historian for the Theodore Roosevelt Association (TRA) and contributor to the design and curation of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library due to open in 2026. To learn more about his published works, podcast, articles, editorials, and speaking events, please visit Books | Michael Patrick Cullinane.