Tom Buchanan was a star football player at Yale in The Great Gatsby.
The detail appears in Nick Carraway's description of Tom, whom Nick knew during their college days. Tom's athletic reputation helps establish him as physically powerful, socially confident and accustomed to privilege. His Yale background is part of the character's old-money identity, alongside his wealth, polo playing and East Egg residence.
Tom's status contrasts with Gatsby's self-made image. Gatsby acquires enormous wealth and throws lavish parties, but Tom treats him as an outsider because Gatsby lacks the same inherited social standing. Their rivalry is therefore about more than Daisy: it also reflects the novel's conflict between established privilege and ambitious new wealth.
Football is sometimes confused with Tom's other associations, especially polo, which he plays as an adult. Jordan Baker, meanwhile, is the character known for golf. Tom's Yale athletic past is a brief biographical detail, but it reinforces Fitzgerald's portrait of a forceful, entitled man.