This is Bob Myers from the Historical Society of Michigan with a Michigan history moment. On a fall day in 1934, the starting center on the University of Michigan's football team walked into coach Harry Kipke's office and said flatly, I quit. That player was Gerald R. Ford. The future president of the United States had a teammate and friend, Willis Ward, a football and track star from Detroit. U. Of M's athletic director, Fielding Yost, had agreed to bench Ward for an upcoming game. Ward was the team's leading scorer that season. Gerald Ford was furious. The issue Willis Ward was African American. The Wolverines would be playing the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets in the segregated south in the 1930s, Southern Colleges refused to let African Americans play on their sports teams. When they took the field against integrated Northern teams, they expected them to bench their African American players. The arrangement was known as a gentleman's agreement field, and Yost had agreed to abide by it for the game he had scheduled against Georgia Tech for October 20, 1934. In exchange, the Yellowjackets agreed to bench one of their own players. The agreement angered U of M students and faculty. 1500 of them signed a petition requesting that Ward be allowed to play. After Gerald Ford threatened to quit, he talked it over with his friend. Ward urged him to stay. Look, he said, the team's having a bad year. We've lost two games already and probably won't win anymore, ford recalled later. I decided he was right. During the game, Willis Ward sat in a boarding house and listened to it on the radio. Yost had barred him from even entering the stadium. Michigan beat Georgia tech that day, 9 to 2. As Ward had predicted, it was Michigan's only win that season. As a politician, Gerald Ford credited that game with establishing his progressive stance on civil rights. He voted against poll taxes, literacy tests and school segregation, and in favor of the Civil Rights act of 1964. Late in his life, he wrote that tolerance, breadth of mind and appreciation for the world beyond our neighborhoods. These can be learned on the football field and in the science lab as well as in the lecture hall. When Willis Ward passed away in 1983, Gerald Ford was an honorary pallbearer. This Michigan history moment was brought to you by michiganhistorymagazine.org.