Willis Ward: University of Michigan Football Team

Standing side by side ... Gerald Ford (No. 48) and Willis Ward (No. 61), were not only close friends but roommates on campus. Ford had considered refusing to play if Ward was kept out of the Georgia Tech game; but at Ward's urging, Ford suited up and helped lead the team to its only victory of the year.

Willis Ward was a pioneer. He cleared trails for minority athletes at Michigan during a time when it was normal to keep people segregated, where they were "supposed" to be. Before his senior year of football, Willis Ward, who had already broken the rule against black football players at Michigan, was given the disturbing news that he would be unable to play in one of Michigan's games. Georgia Tech refused to play against a black player.

In 1932, Ward was the first black football player to play for Michigan in 40 years and would be an instrumental part in Michigan's national championship teams the next two years. He earned honorable mention All-American honors in 1933 at right end. An unbelievable talent in track, Ward set numerous records and was expected to be one of the premier athletes in the NCAA his senior season.

But when Ward found out he had to sit out the '34 Georgia Tech game because of his color, all he could do was hang his head in disgust. Knowing he wouldn't be a captain on either track or football, Ward toyed with the idea of quitting football, even writing a letter to then-Michigan coach Harry Kipke about his intentions of leaving the team.

"It was not the fact that I was not made a captain of either football or track that destroyed my will," Ward said in John Behee's book on black athletes at Michigan, "Hail to the Victors."

"It was the fact that I couldn't play in the Georgia Tech game. That all of a sudden, the practice that you just did because it was the thing to do that was good - a tremendous amount of burnt up energy - all of a sudden becomes drudgery."

According to Behee, Ward wasn't even allowed to watch the game from the press box, or even from the bench of his own stadium. Instead, he spent the afternoon of Oct. 20 in a fraternity house. Demoralized, Ward became disenchanted with his competition in athletics. He had high expectations in football and track for his senior year, but the football team finished the season 1-7 - a far cry from the national championship teams he played on the previous two years.

His lone sports highlight as a senior was beating Ohio State's Jesse Owens in 1935 at Yost Fieldhouse in the 60-yard dash and 65 high hurdles. Ward's times were neck-and-neck with Owens' up until the NCAAs, when Ward hung up his spikes for good.

Fear of further exclusion from competition because of his skin color compelled Ward not to try out for the 1936 Olympic team. Black athletes were allowed to race in Berlin at Hitler's Olympics, but Ward still had doubts. Owens went on to become an international hero by winning gold in Berlin.

"They were urging me to go out in '36," Ward said in "Hail to the Victors." "But that Georgia Tech game killed me. I frankly felt they would not let black athletes compete. Having gone through the Tech experience, it seemed an easy thing for them to say 'Well, we just won't run 'em if Hitler insists.'"

But Ward had his fill of fighting the system. From his first days as a potential athlete at Michigan, Ward was always fighting the system that barred black athletes from playing. A federal judge and constant support from Kipke finally permitted the Detroit Northwestern High School A-student to join Michigan's team.

A University rule against black players participating in football and then-Athletic Director Fielding Yost, a well-known racist and son of a confederate soldier, prevented Ward from playing.

"Once that (Circuit Court Judge Guy Miller) learned that ... Michigan and Yost did not want black football players, Judge Miller said, 'Well, will you help break this rule?'" Ward recalled in "Hail to the Victors."

Kipke was eager to have Ward on his team. He had played with black athletes in high school. Behee said in "Hail to the Victors" that "on several occasions Kipke took off his coat and was prepared to fight with those who bitterly opposed having a Negro play for Michigan."

Little public animosity was shown towards Ward when he began his Michigan career. Ivan Williamson, captain of the '32 football team, greeted Ward at the field house and told him, "If you have any problems with anybody, let me know because we're prepared to take care of them."

Ward didn't have any until the Yellow Jackets came up on the schedule. Then Georgia Tech football coach and athletic director W. A. Alexander, a good friend of Yost's, insisted that Ward not participate or the game be canceled. Alexander even suggested that if Michigan didn't play along, then the game could be canceled due to a "mistake" about the date.

There was fear that if Ward played, he would be injured by malicious blows after the play had ended. Not wanting to risk injury to Ward or cancel the game, Michigan decided to bench Ward.

Protests emerged from Michigan alums, the NAACP and the National Student League among many other groups. A petition was signed by more than a thousand students and several professors asking the University to let Ward play.

Rumors of a sit-down protest on the 50-yard line during the game flew around campus the week before the game. The disruption of the event caused Yost to thwart any protest by hiring a Pinkerton agent to infiltrate "The United Front Committee on Ward," a conglomerate of student organizations that supported Ward's right to play, and prevent the potential student threat.

The Athletic Department wouldn't comment on why Ward was being withheld. Behee speculated in "Hail to the Victors" and "Fielding Yost's Legacy" that Yost was the key figure in withholding Ward from playing, including keeping Kipke quiet. But Behee also pointed out in "Fielding Yost's Legacy," that, despite Yost's upbringing in West Virginia and Tennessee, he was "clearly guilty of unjust racial bias," but "certainly seemed to traveling along with his times."

But the day after the Georgia Tech game was played and Ward had been humiliated by his own University, an editorial ran in The Michigan Daily stating "that everyone who touched (the Ward affair) did so only to lose in respect and esteem."

None lost more than Ward.

Source: University of Michigan Library