Gerald "Gerry" Rudolph Ford, Jr. (1913-2006)
First it was Bo Schembechler. Now it’s Gerald Ford. If I’m Ray Jackson, I’m starting to get worried.
Gerald Ford was a man of great accomplishments. The former captain of his high school football team, Ford was the starting center on the offensive line of the powerhouse Michigan teams of the 30’s, winning back to back national championships in 1933 and 1934. Spurning several offers to play professional football, he took a coaching position (football and boxing) at Yale while working towards a law degree. Ford served his country in World War II in the Pacific Theater, earning 10 battle stars and nearly losing his life when swept overboard by a typhoon. While President, Gerald Ford maintained his active lifestyle, taking up swimming, tennis, and notably, golf.
The nation’s first unelected Vice-President, and first unelected President, Ford was in many respects the exact antidote the nation needed for the poisonous Nixon era. A statesman, scholar, and athlete, Gerald Ford was a man respected on all sides of the political spectrum. Unlike his successor, Ford was not a publicity hound and kept a low profile.
Ford was, if anything, a common man of uncommon accomplishments. He maintained an easy, open persona, always seeming like the most approachable of Presidents. He healed the wounds of the country in the wake of the Watergate scandal and was probably the world’s most famous Michigan Wolverines fan, keeping abreast of the Ohio State-Michigan game even while on a tour of the Soviet Union.
President Gerald Ford truly lived an eventful life. Were he not such a good student, you might say Ford was a real-life Forrest Gump. It just goes to show that you really do never know what you’re gonna get.
Posted 12/27/06 by Ron | Filed under: NCAA Football
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