Before he was the 38th President of the United States, Gerald R. Ford was an All-City football player at the now defunct South High, and a most valuable player and college all-star while playing center, long-snapper and linebacker for the University of Michigan’s football team.
Contrary to a “clumsy” public image created by comics, a 2013 USA Today article ranked him as the most athletic president in history.
He was the captain of his South High team and reportedly earned all-state recognition his senior year as well.
At Michigan, he was a three-time letter winner and was a key player on consecutive undefeated teams recognized as national champions in 1932 and ’33. He was the Wolverines’ Most Valuable player in 1934 and played in the then College All-Star game and what became known as the East West Shrine Game. His No. 48 jersey at Michigan was retired until 2012 when the Ford family agreed it should be worn again by Wolverines, and he is known as the only U.S. president to tackle a Heisman Trophy winner. He brought down 1935 Heisman winner Jay Berwanger of the University of Chicago in a 1934 game.
After graduating from Michigan, Ford turned down NFL offers from the Detroit Lions and Green Bay according to records at the Ford Presidential Museum, and instead served as an assistant football and boxing coach at Yale where he eventually attended law school.
While in the White House, he swam each day, and was a regular skier, golfer and tennis player.
He put himself in the public eye with golf during pro-am events and a spectator hit by an errant drive made him the subject of jokes. Bob Hope, who played with Ford often and later admitted that Ford was a good golfer, once quipped: "It's not hard to find Jerry Ford on a golf course – you just follow the wounded."
His skiing falls, a slip off metal steps while getting off Air Force One during rain and bumping his head on an airplane doorway became news and comedic fodder. In his memoir, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford, the president recounted a stumble recorded by television becoming a national story.
"There was no doubt in my mind that I was the most athletic president to occupy the White House in years ... [but] from that moment on, every time I stumbled or bumped my head or fell in the snow, reporters zeroed in on that to the exclusion of almost everything else. ... [This] helped create the public perception of me as a stumbler. And that wasn't funny."