Michigan team trip: Jim Harbaugh reminisces on Gerald R. Ford, being hired by Jim Hackett in 2014

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Michigan Wolverines football is on its summer trip around the state of Michigan, with its second stop taking place Friday. The Maize and Blue blitzed the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, listening to speakers and taking in the various exhibits.

The Michigan team heard from Buzz Thomas, a relative of former U-M player Willis Ward, one of the first African-Americans to play for the Wolverines. Ward and Gerald R. Ford share history, of course. Ford, an All-American, courageously threatened to quit the 1934 team when opponent Georgia Tech didn’t allow Ward or black players to take part in the game.

The second set of speakers at the museum’s auditorium were former Michigan football player and interim athletic director (2014-16) Jim Hackett, a West Michigan native and the former CEO at Steelcase and Ford Motor Company, along with former U-M basketball player Wayman Britt.

The two discussed Ford and his legacy, as well as Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, who was listening intently in the audience with his players, staff members and families that took up nearly every seat.

Harbaugh interjected at the end to tell a couple stories (and name off the starting five of the 1976 Michigan basketball team that made the NCAA final and lost to Indiana, of which Britt was a part of).

Harbaugh discussed being hired by Hackett in December 2014, when he was finishing up his time as the head man of the NFL’s San Francisco 49ers.

“For you guys that don’t know … when I was hired here at Michigan, Jim Hackett was the athletic director, and he was the only person that I talked to.

“Jim called me up and asked if I wanted to be the head coach at Michigan, and I said, ‘You had me at hello, Jim.’ I’m forever thankful for Jim for making that call.”

The crowd applause at those remarks from the Michigan coach.

He then talked about his time spent with Ford on the Michigan golf course as a kid in the 1970s.

“President Ford, when I played, starting in ’82, he would visit once or twice a year practice,” Harbaugh said. “Him and Bo, he’d be out there on the practice field, whether it was a fall practice or sometimes he’d come in the spring. But he was around the program a lot when I was a player.

“And then one time, it was his last year of being president, I think, he played in the Michigan Open, the pro-am, with Bo. It was this big thing … and I went up to Bo as a 12-year-old kid. I had my speech all rehearsed, and I said, ‘Coach Schembechler, I know you’re going to be playing in the golf tournament with President Ford. Do you need a caddy?’ He said, ‘Let me think about that.’

“Three or four days later, he told my dad that I could be his caddy in that group. I was Bo Schembechler’s caddy, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I was walking across the lines [of the putts]. ‘Jim, you’re supposed to go get the pin.’ I had no idea what I was doing. Just a scared little boy at the time.

“The thing I remember, too, was that the secret service was everywhere. There were people in trees with machine guns. I called them Tommy guns. They had golf bags with machine guns.

“Gerald Ford was a true gentlemen, one of the finest presidents we’ve had.”

Jim Hackett reveals story about Gerald R. Ford’s Michigan fandom

Hackett had a story from his playing days in the 1970s that epitomized just how big of a Michigan fan and follower Ford was.

“The president and Bo talked before every Ohio State game when he was in office,” Hackett said. “And Bo would be in the room at the [team hotel], and they’d go, ‘Bo, President Ford is on the line,’ and he would take this call.

“So, one time, I think he was negotiating the first nuclear START treaty with the Russians. The leader of the Russians, [Leonid] Brezhnev. It was so cold [in Helsinki] that you’ll see pictures of the president wearing a kind of bizarre hat because the Russians gave him this hat.

“He says to Brezhnev, ‘Look, we’ve got an outline of what we’re going to talk about, but I’ve got to know what’s going on down in Ann Arbor with Ohio State and Michigan. So they were sending telegrams about where they were in the game every five minutes. And we won that game.”

Hackett visited with and told stories to Michigan players while they were observing the exhibits.