Write On Sports LLC - "Gerald Ford: A True Sportsman" by Troy Somero

Gerald Ford: A True Sportsman

2006-12-29 10:53:58 | By: Troy Somero

The death of President Gerald Ford on Tuesday was as a significant a loss to the American sports culture as it was to the American political culture. Few people of national prominence outside the world of sports have contributed so much to the world of sports as President Ford. In a month where sports icon Lamar Hunt passed away, the loss of President Ford is an equally significant blow. Just as Lamar Hunt used his wealth and prestige to propel sports like AFL Football and soccer into the national limelight, President Ford demonstrated that decorated athletes could both gain from their involvement in sports and, in turn, contribute back to the sporting world through their involvement in sports long after their athletic careers were over.

As a Midwestern adolescent from a broken home, Ford found a sense of duty and discipline in athletics. President Ford graduated from South High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan as a highly touted offensive lineman and was both the captain of his team and an all-state center his senior season. Despite all of his athletic accomplishments in high school, Ford earned an academic scholarship to the University of Michigan in 1931.

Always driven by his mother and stepfather, as well as the knowledge of his abandonment by his father, Ford was determined to be named captain during his senior year of college. When he was passed up for the captainship, Ford still gained the respect of his fellow teammates by being named the teams most valuable player his senior year of college, two years after anchoring an offensive line that led Michigan to back-to-back undefeated, national title seasons. Early on in his athletic life, Ford demonstrated that a "student-athlete" could be both a student and an athlete – one role did not have to overshadow the other.

Ford's embracement of his role as a student-athlete continued through his time as a graduate student at Yale. Instead of taking offers to play with the Packers and the Lions in the early NFL, Ford chose to pursue two of his passions – academics and athletics – simultaneously. In fact, Ford was so dedicated to athletics while at Yale – between his roles as assistant football coach and head boxing coach, both of which provided supplementary income for graduate school – that he was not allowed to take law classes full-time.

It was Ford's sports background ultimately allowed him to enter the military in 1942. Although he was at first spurned from combat by military officials who identified his talent for training troops on the home front, Ford parlayed his job as a physical training officer at the University of North Carolina into a more military role as a physical education officer on the U.S.S. Monterey, a light aircraft carrier in the Pacific. Once again, President Ford was able to use sports as a stepping stone towards loftier goals, as he rose from physical education officer to lieutenant general in places like Okinawa and the Philippines in a little over two year. President Ford won ten battle stars as a lieutenant general in the Pacific, and he likely would not have garnered a single one if not for his talents and work ethic derived from his sports background.

It was his role in World War II that ultimate led Ford to a life of politics. In fact, Ford advanced his prior success in the sports arena to his later life in the political arena. He only lost two elections in his entire life: his senior class presidential election bid in high school and his United States' presidential election bid in 1976. In addition, once he achieved the career aspirations he desired, President Ford greatly contributed to the world of sports and kept sports as an integral part of his life. After he pardoned former President Richard Nixon on the morning of September 8, 1974, President Ford played a round of golf that afternoon. "I felt then, and I feel now, if I was going to do it, it had to be clean, sudden," Mr. Ford said months after he had left office. "It was a part of the healing process." In addition to the frequent rounds of golf, President Ford speckled in daily swims, tennis matches and alpine skiing in Colorado during his two-plus years of presidency.

After his presidency was over, President Ford was able to use his prestigious position to create fervor for the very sports he participated in during his presidency. In 1982, President Ford established the Ford Cup in Vail, Colorado (it is now called the American Ski Classic). A few years later, President Ford played an integral role in creating the Jerry Ford Invitational Golf Tournament, which also took place in Colorado. The combination of the skiing cup and golf tournament in the Centennial State allowed President Ford to advocate for Colorado as a vacation destination, a sentiment he felt as early as 1968 when he first vacationed in the Rockies. This sentiment was indeed a seminal aspect of establishing Colorado as a vacation destination, highlighted by the state's hosting of two Alpine Ski Championships, both of which were the result of President Ford's efforts.

President Ford himself never separated the role of sports in making him the person he was. "Everything didn't turn to gold just because I did it," he remarked. "I had this foundation, and I had been brought up with the training that — and this is an oversimplification, but I think it's indicative — the harder you work, the luckier you are. And whether it was in such things as the Boy Scouts or athletics or academics, I worked like hell." Perhaps it is this quote that best signifies the role that sports had in President Ford's life: sports served as a stabilizing, disciplining aspect of his life; however, President Ford never put athletics on a pedestal higher than academics or patriotism (i.e. the "Boy Scouts").

President Ford was even a true scholar-athlete long after he finished his days as a "scholar-athlete". Bo Schembechler, the recently deceased former Michigan football coach, reminisced about how President Ford would visit Wolverine football practices throughout the years and ask to join the huddle. President Ford also ate dinner with the football players and often asked Coach Schembechler for the privilege to speak to the team at such occasions.

When the average American puts the two phrases "president" and "sports" together, he thinks of such events as President Bill Clinton attending the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Game in 1995 or President George W. Bush throwing out the first pitch in New York prior to Game One of the 2001 World Series. While such events stick out in the mind of any sports fan, the more unsung actions of President Ford are indicative on an individual who truly loved sports. Sports gave to Ford before he was President Ford, but once he became President Ford man gave right back. Here's to God blessing the memory of President Gerald Ford the same way President Ford blessed the world of sports.

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