Who was the first athlete to appear on a box of Wheaties cereal?

The first athlete to appear on a box of Wheaties cereal was Lou Gehrig. In 1934, the breakfast company, Wheaties, began the practice of including pictures of athletes on its cereal box. The great baseball player Gehrig appeared on the back, not on the front on the Wheaties cereal box. His accomplishment paved the way for many more athletes, including Otto Graham, Esther Williams, Bruce Jenner, Chris Evert, Michael Jordan, Steve Veltman, Mary Lou Retton, Tom Barrasso, Darrell Waltrip, Michael Phelps, etc.

As part of an ad campaign executives for Wheaties wrote and said: “Testimonials from athletic greats like Lou Gehrig turned our modest wheat flake into a breakfast food legend. Our brand is forging new methods of marketing that will revamp the product from a cereal into an advocate for a specific lifestyle. Wheaties cereal is what you ate if you want to be like sport professionals – it is truly the ‘Breakfast of Champions’.”

The Wheaties cereal box brand was and is now proud of the fact that it picked and featured well-respected athletes like Gehrig on the brand's box since the 1930s. Sport figures appeared and have often been seen as idols in light of their hard work and personal triumphs.