Michigan football countdown to kickoff: 61 days until 2022 season

There’s much anticipation heading into the Michigan Wolverines football season, and TheWolverine.com is counting down the days until the Sept. 3 opener against Colorado State. We’ll discuss current Michigan events, upcoming season and/or take a look at a significant number that correlates with how many days remain until kickoff, whether it be a player’s jersey number, a year, a date, a score, etc.

Our countdown to kickoff series brings us to the fourth of July, which puts Michigan 61 days out from its 2022 season opener against Colorado State. The most notable No. 61 in Wolverine football history comes with a tie to a former U.S. President.

Today, we look back on end Willis Ward and his time at Michigan.

Ward was born in Alabama in 1913 and moved to Detroit after his father got a job working for Ford Motor Company. He was a dual-sport star at Detroit Northwestern High School in both track and football. Ward’s talents on the track earned him Michigan High School Athlete of the Year honors. On the track, he was a college champion in the high jump, the long jump, the 100-yard dash and the 440-yard dash. Ward finished his Michigan track career with three-time All-American honors and eight Big Ten titles.

Ward was the second black letter winner in the football program’s history and the first in 40 years (George Jewitt). He started 12 games over his first two years with the program in 1932-33, but 1934 was a low point for both Michigan and his career.

Coming off a pair of undefeated seasons, Michigan fell to 1-7 in 1934. Ward’s role in that year is most known for the game he did not play in.

The Georgia Tech controversy

Michigan scheduled a game against Georgia Tech in Week 3 of the 1934 season. However, Georgia Tech coach and athletic director W.A. “Bill” Alexander” refused to let his team take the field against an African-American player. Alexander even wrote a letter to Michigan’s Fielding Yost the previous fall asking what they planned to do about Ward.

When the game got closer, Georgia Tech’s stance did not change and Michigan ready to cave to the demand, it was the topic of controversy on campus. Student protests and demonstrations took place. Many demanded Ward play or the game gets canceled. It got to the point where Yost hired a Pinkerton to get into the cluster of student groups and keep things safe.

Michigan would ultimately sit Ward out of the game in exchange for Georgia Tech sitting its star end, as well. The Wolverines grabbed a 9-2 victory in what would be their only win of the season.

President Gerald R. Ford, a member of Michigan’s football team at the time, was famously involved in the controversy. He and Warde became friends and were roommates for road games. When Ford learned that Michigan was not going to let Ward play, he was furious and some say he threatened to quit the team. In his autobiography, he noted that the decision to keep Ward out was “morally wrong.”

“His sacrifice led me to question how educational administrators could capitulate to raw prejudice,” Ford wrote.

Ward’s legacy

The hurt of the Georgia Tech game was something Ward took with him the rest of his life, per many accounts.

“It was the fact that I couldn’t play in the Georgia Tech game,” he said, via The Michigan Daily. “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.”

Ward did have another sports highlight in him, though. He beat Jesse Owens in the 60-yard dash and 65 high hurdles in 1935 at Yost Fieldhouse. However, his competitive drive was mostly depleted. He went out for Olympic trials in 1936 but did not train as much as others and did not make the U.S. team.

Warde would go on to earn a law degree from Detroit College of Law in 1939 and was a long-time lawyer and judge. He was later elected a probate judge in Wayne County, Michigan. The University of Michigan including him into the Athletic Hall of Honor in 1981.

Michigan football countdown to kickoff

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