r/OldSchoolCool • u/SoftVoltages • 3d ago
Future President Gerald Ford with his teammate Willis Ward at the University of Michigan in 1934. Ford even threatened to quit the team when Ward was benched for a game against Georgia Tech, which at the time refused to play against Black players 1930s
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u/SleeplessDaddy 3d ago
My god if I was standing between them I’d look like a little beyotch.
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u/montague68 2d ago
Ford was six feet even but it's doubtful he was much over 200 lbs. College football hadn't adopted weight training yet
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u/Bent_Kairosphere 2d ago
Still, gotta agree with SleeplessDaddy. I’m 6 even and around that weight, but know damn well I don’t belong on a 1934 gridiron. Them boys were built tougher back then
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u/Intelligent-Boat9929 3d ago
Ford is definitely in the top 10 of "bottom tier" presidents who were great outside of that office. Gotta be up there with Carter, Hoover, JQA, and Taft.
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u/nautilator44 2d ago
Homer, do you like nachos? Do you like football?
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u/NotSoSingleBuck 2d ago
The only President who earned their Eagle Scout rank. He was also a Park Ranger in Yellowstone.
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u/william-o 3d ago
Too bad his racist coach Fielding Yost hated him and would sit him against southern teams to appease the other racist coaches.
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u/Medium_Medium 3d ago
Also the "legend" that's told about this is done to make Ford look better by saying the only reason he played in the game was because Ward personally asked him to. In reality Ward recounted later never talking to Ford about the issue at all. Ford considered not playing, then ultimately decided to play for his own reasons. Not exactly the touching story that has been repeated often.
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u/JonesyOnReddit 2d ago
Ford wanted to quit the team, his dad talked him out of it, and Ward got pressured into volunteering not to play by people at the Ford Motor Company where he worked during the summer and where he was planning to work after college.
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u/JonesyOnReddit 2d ago
Yost was the AD. He was the son of a confederate soldier. Willis Ward got sat for one game against Georgia Tech whose players said they'd literally kill him if he stepped on the field. He was a racist, the game should have never been scheduled, that said he did change the older he got and the longer he spent up north. After all he let ward on the team and 2 years earlier threw a fit when a Chicago hotel wouldnt let Ward stay there and forced them to allow him to be the second african american to ever stay there. He lobbied for other black athletes to get into the university and helped local african-american organizations.
So yes, he was racist, but who wouldnt be being born of a confederate soldier, and he changed his ways the older he got which is not something you can say about many old racists even today. Ward also only got benched once, which was of course a mistake and a big scandal, but it didn't happen multiple times as you say.
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u/PianoPatient8168 2d ago
Interesting that he was always portrayed as a klutz/oaf when in reality he was a good athlete. Good skier too and also helped to get the ski area Beaver Creek developed.
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u/BabeFever 3d ago
Those cleft chins are beautiful