Michigan to honor black player benched 78 years ago

• Ward was one of Michigan's best players in 1934 but was benched at an opponent's request
• An eight-year-old Michigan girl's campaign gains recognition for Ward 78 years later
• Ward became a judge, and Ford became president

This is a tale about the most shameful day in the history of Michigan football. It somehow has room for a ground-breaking judge, a future president of the United States, and an eight-year-old girl.

The story of Willis Ward and Gerald Ford and Oct. 20, 1934 will be told at the Big House on Saturday. Few know it, but everyone should.

They were college buddies from the first day they met at freshmen orientation – one destined for the courthouse, the other for the White House.

They were roommates on road games, a startling fact for 1934. One was African-American, the other was white.

They were stars for the University of Michigan football team. Seventy-eight years ago this Saturday, one was made to sit the bench for a game because of his race. The other threatened to quit in protest. The day would shape both men for the rest of their lives.

Michigan will honor Ward on Saturday at the Michigan State game. It will remember how he was the most gifted player on the '34 team – a Wolverine Usain Bolt, who beat a fast Ohio State kid named Jesse Owens -- but was not allowed to play against Georgia Tech. The visiting Yellow Jackets threatened to forfeit rather than share the field with a black player.

The Michigan administration hemmed, hawed and then buckled, refusing to let Ward take the field or even come into the stadium. The Wolverines' leading scorer had to listen to the game from his fraternity house. Jim Crow had come to Ann Arbor.

``People, I think, really don't believe such an event could happen at the University of Michigan,'' Buzz Thomas, Ward's grandson, said over the phone this week. ``And yet, it did.''

Michigan will also remember Ford, and how the future 38th president was enraged on behalf of his friend, threatening not to play, until Ward talked him out of it. Ford was a 21-year-old kid willing to take a stand that the adults in his school's high command would not.

``If you said to me, `Can you tell me one story about your dad's life?' I would tell you the Willis Ward story,'' Steve Ford, Gerald Ford's son, said in a phone interview .``To me it is the pearl of who he was, and his friendship with Willis, and what both lives turned into. Both of them were way ahead of their times.''

As Thomas said, ``It speaks volumes for what can happen with friendship.''

Michigan, playing with a special purpose, beat Georgia Tech 9-2. It was the Wolverines' only victory of an awful 1-7 season.

Ford went on to political power, Ward to a distinguished career first in business with the Ford Motor Company, then a lawyer, then a judge. So much of what they became flowed from that day.

Thomas said of his grandfather, ``I think it was a very dark time for him. He was an athlete that had chosen to strap on the gear and fight for the University of Michigan. I'm sure he was very disappointed that the university didn't fight for him that day.

``I think it challenged him more to be a great man and to accomplish things that could never be taken away from him again. I think that was the turning point in his life.

``He was the first of a lot of things for African-Americans here in Michigan.''

Steve Ford said, ``To me, it's not a story about Michigan. It's not a story about Georgia Tech. They were plenty of other schools in the South that were doing exactly the same thing. It's the story about two men and their friendship.''

Ward and Gerald Ford were friends the rest of their lives, and that is as rich a relationship as it gets. Ward died in 1983 at the age of 71, Ford in 2006 at 93 -- neither man ever saying much about the day that came to define their paths and beliefs.

Thomas, a former Michigan state senator now in public relations work, said he did not know of the story until after his grandfather was gone, hearing it from his grandmother.

``I wish,'' he said, ``I had had the opportunity to hear it directly from him.''

Steve Ford did not know it until late in the 1990s. ``That's what amazed me,'' he said. ``That was not a story dad ever talked about. It wasn't something he wore on his sleeve.''

And did we mention Michigan third grader Genna Urbain? An Emmy-nominated documentary -- ``Black and Blue: The Story of Gerald Ford, Willis Ward and the 1934 Michigan-Georgia Tech Football Game'' -- was produced last year. Genna saw it and was so moved, she made it a personal crusade that Ward would have his day in Michigan Stadium.

She spoke to the university board of regents, worked the state legislature better than any lobbyist, and helped bring about Saturday. ``I really wanted to see it all the way through to the end,'' she told the Detroit News.

So everyone on campus can hear the saga this weekend, including Michigan senior sociology major Melanie Ward, who also happens to be Willis' great niece.

``I didn't know about this for a long time,'' she said. ``I knew I had a great uncle on my dad's side that played football. For people to have dedicated so much of their time to bring this to light, it feels really good.''

Four years ago, there was a contentious debate in the Michigan state legislature about whether Gerald Ford should have a statue in the U.S. Capitol rotunda as a representative of Michigan. The sticking point was that Ford would be replacing noted abolitionist Zachariah Chandler, and Ford's civil rights history became an issue.

``A young Democratic senator stood up and told the story of Willis Ward,'' Steve Ford said.

The speaker was Ward's grandson, Buzz Thomas. The vote for Ford was quiet and unanimous.

``I had to tell that story that day,'' Thomas said. ``It was the right thing to do for my family to stand up for Gerald Ford, just like he stood up for our family in the 1930s.''

``It makes the story come full circle,'' Steve Ford said.

Or Saturday will.