Hillary's Rodham Family Lore That Dad Earned Football Scholarship Untrue

Hillary Clinton's oft-told story of her father going to college on a football scholarship is reportedly more family myth than fact.

Hugh Rodham earned a letter and played football at Penn State, but didn't attend on a football scholarship, Jeff Nelson, an associate athletic director at the school, tells BuzzFeed News.

"Penn State ended scholarships with the incoming freshman class of 1928 and did not resume scholarships until the incoming freshman class of 1949," Nelson tells the media outlet. "Mr. Rodham earned a letter in 1934."

The Democratic presidential contender likes to tell a different story.

"You know I’m the granddaughter of a factory worker from Scranton, Pennsylvania,” Clinton said at a town hall in Las Vegas on Tuesday, BuzzFeed reports.

"My grandfather worked in the lace mills in Scranton. He worked really hard from the time he was a teenager till he retired in '65. He always believed his hard work would pay off, and it would pay off for his kids.

"So my dad got to go to college, it was on a football scholarship, but he still got to go to college."

In his 2007 biography of Clinton, Watergate reporter Carl Bernstein reported the discrepancy – and that Hugh Rodham had a history of exaggeration, BuzzFeed reports.

Clinton has told the story of her dad's football scholarship in the past, including in a campaign speech during her first presidential run, the news outlet reports.

And mainstream media, including the New York Times, have repeated the claim as fact, BuzzFeed News reports.

A Clinton spokesman never returned a request for comment, BuzzFeed reports.

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