President Ford earns a spot in Spartans’ football history

For official presidential appearances, U.S. President Gerald R. Ford, a “Michigan man,” frequently asked the U.S. Marine Corps Band to play the University of Michigan’s college fight song, “Hail to the Victors,” in place of the traditional “Hail to the Chief” Presidential Anthem.

Ford was a big man on the U-M campus at Ann Arbor, having played varsity football for the Wolverines. He was the center on the offensive line and a linebacker on defense, wearing #48. At 6-foot-1 and 195 pounds, he helped his team go undefeated and win national titles in 1932 and 1933. He was the team’s MVP in 1934 and graduated in 1935.

Forty years later in 1975, imagine President Ford’s surprise when he arrived in Peking, China, on Dec. 2, 1975, and was greeted by a band of Chinese musicians who were belting out the melodic refrains of “Victory for MSU,” the Michigan State University fight song.!

There was no whodunit mystery about it. With great pride, the jovial Peter Secchia, a wealthy businessman from Grand Rapids, Mich., and an MSU alumnus, took full credit for the “mix up.” Secchia fessed up when he was interviewed by Ford biographer Richard Norton Smith in 2008.

Peter Secchia’s unofficial title during the Ford White House years from 1974-77 was “friend of the family.”

“When the president went to China, the White House called me and said, ‘We don’t have the sheet music for the Michigan fight song.’ I said I’d get it to them right away…and I sent them the Michigan State fight song.” (Dagnabbit! That’s one for the “Go Green” record books.)

Secchia got the better of President Ford once again when dignitaries gathered in 1978 to dedicate the Gerald R. Ford Freeway (Interstate 196) – an 80-mile stretch of highway from Grand Rapids to Benton Harbor in western Michigan.

Secchia slyly rigged the unveiling of the large, green highway sign. It was innocently covered with a Michigan-colored (maize and blue) banner. When they pulled the rope, however, it revealed not the highway sign, but a second banner – in the Michigan State colors (Spartan green and white).

Secchia, the clever prankster, said he has a videotape of the moment, showing former President Ford turn to Michigan Gov. William Milliken and muttering, “Where’s Secchia?”

Professional football was an option for Gerald Ford, after he graduated in 1935. The Detroit Lions and the Green Bay Packers both dangled offers. Earl Louis “Curly” Lambeau of the Packers sent Ford a letter, agreeing to pay him an annual salary of $1,540 ($110 per game for a 14-game season).

Ford once joked that “Detroit and Green Bay were pretty hard up for linemen in those days. If I had gone into professional football, the name Jerry Ford might have been a household word today.”

“Yale University needed an assistant football coach and, hoping to repay various debts and find a way into Yale’s prestigious law school, Ford took the $2,400-a-year job in 1935,” said Dr. John Robert Greene, a history professor at Cazenovia (N.Y.) College. “Ford also coached boxing – a sport with which he had absolutely no familiarity.”

At first, the Yale Law School administration refused to allow Ford to take classes full time due to his coaching duties, “but Ford persisted and eventually was accepted on a trial basis in 1938,” Dr. Greene said. Ford earned his Yale law degree in 1941.

Gerald Ford returned to his hometown of Grand Rapids to practice law, but “Pearl Harbor put Ford’s legal career on hold,” Dr. Greene commented. “Ford enlisted in the U.S. Navy in April 1942. He served four years in the South Pacific.”

In 1948, Ford was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Ford would serve continuously in that chamber until President Richard Nixon tapped Congressman Ford in 1973 to become vice president. (The office had been vacated by Spiro Agnew, who was under investigation for felony charges.) Ultimately, Watergate misdoings led to Nixon’s demise, and Nixon resigned as president on Aug. 9, 1974.

Ford automatically ascended to the presidency – the “first person ever to occupy that office who had not been sent there by the electorate,” Dr. Greene stated.

Immediately after taking the oath, President Ford appealed to the American public: “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers.”

Three other past U.S. presidents also donned varsity football jerseys while collegians. We’ll have to check the box scores.

Rivalries spice up interest in college sports

College athletics thrives on natural rivalries, and the most-played football rivalry in the NCAA Division 1 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) classification, the major schools, is between the Minnesota Golden Gophers and Wisconsin Badgers, both members of the Big Ten Conference.

These two teams have met 128 times, dating back to 1890, and the series is all knotted up, 60-60-8 – even-steven.

The drama is intense. Which team will surge into the lead in the head-to-head battles on the gridiron? This year’s rivalry game is to be played outdoors on Nov. 30 at Minnesota’s stadium in Minneapolis. Bundle up.

The winner takes possession of Paul Bunyan’s Axe. “The story of Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack, is one of the most enduring tall tales in North America,” said storyteller Debra Ronca of Somerset, N.J. “Paul Bunyan’s blue ox named Babe grew so large that her footsteps around Minnesota created the state’s 10,000 lakes.”

The axe became the rivalry game’s traveling trophy in 1948. “Before the axe, the annual Wisconsin-Minnesota game was contested with something even more prestigious on the line – the Slab of Bacon,” wrote Alex Kirshner of SBNation, a unit of Vox Media.

“The slab came into existence in 1930, carved out of wood. The rustic, brown slab either looked like an ‘M’ or a ‘W,’ depending on which way it’s vertically hanging, and the winner got to say it ‘brought home the bacon.’”

After a Gophers’ victory over Wisconsin in 1943, Minnesota’s coach George Hauser declined to accept the slab, respectfully suggesting that such frivolities be postponed until after the World War II years.

Wouldn’t you know, Wisconsin lost track of the slab. Dagnabbit.

The Badgers’ beloved former coach Barry Alvarez once said in jest: “We took home the bacon and kept it.”

The old trophy was uncovered in the bowels of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium in Madison in 1994, during a major renovation project, and it is now being preserved in the university’s football office. Inquiring Gopher fans ask if the ‘W’ is upside down?

The 2019 meeting between Minnesota and Wisconsin takes on additional meaning. It is the consummate battle of rival marching bands as well. This year is the 110-year anniversary of the two schools’ fight songs.

Linnea Rock, a Wisconsin alumna, revealed that “On, Wisconsin” was originally intended for Minnesota, rather than Wisconsin.” Good gracious.

In the early days, Minnesota’s de facto fight song had been “Hail! Minnesota,” sung at a rather hymn-like pace. Gophers’ cheerleader Russell “Bunny” Rathbun remarked that the song is “beautiful, but too mournful to warm the feet in the bleachers.” University officials agreed, and a contest was organized with a $100 prize to be awarded to the winning fight song.

William T. Purdy planned to enter. He was struggling to make ends meet while working as an office clerk and part-time music teacher in Chicago, Ill. He composed the melody on the piano, and his friend Carl Beck, who was living in the same rooming house, heard the tune.

Beck had taken classes at Wisconsin, so he persuaded Purdy to dedicate the song to Wisconsin instead of Minnesota. Beck wrote lyrics to accompany Purdy’s music, and “On, Wisconsin,” was created.

“On, Wisconsin!” made its game-day debut at Camp Randall on Nov. 13, 1909, in a game against Minnesota. The Gophers rang up a 34-6 victory to spoil the homecoming party.

The following Saturday, on Nov. 20, 1909, Minnesota introduced its new fight song, the “Minnesota Rouser,” in its final home game of the season, a 15-6 loss to Michigan.

Hence, Floyd M. Hutsell, composer of “Minnesota Rouser,” pocketed the $100 cash prize. His tune was selected over 92 other entries.

Carl Beck eventually became a successful banker in New York City. William T. Purdy returned to his hometown of Aurora, N.Y., where he contracted tuberculosis and died in 1918, at age 36. After his death, the University of Wisconsin provided Purdy’s two children, Ken and Marylois, with scholarships to attend Wisconsin, where they studied journalism.

“On, Wisconsin” continues to be one of the most popular and best-loved fight songs in the country, with some variation of the song adapted by more than 2,500 schools.

The song was proclaimed to be “the finest of all the college marching songs” by John Philip Sousa, a composer of hundreds of military marches.

Friday night high school football is coming soon

High school football is a fall sport that gets underway in North Carolina in the sweltering heat of summer. The season’s official kickoff is Friday, Aug. 23. Players and spectators alike need to hydrate…and then bask in the glow and glory of the traditions and rituals associated with Friday night high school football.

Life is too short to let the season pass you by. Hence, my plan was to wow readers with a scintillating column about the nostalgia associated with high school football. Research revealed, however, that barrels of ink have already been devoted to this topic. One of the foremost contributors is Bob Howell a columnist with The Auburn (Ala.) Villager.

Howell grew up in Geneva, Ala., located just north of the Florida border. He said that when the Geneva High School Panthers took the field, practically the entire student body of 390 kids (minus those suited up for the game or in the marching band), would be cheering in the stands as well as most of the other 4,610 people who lived in the town.

Howell is of the generation that listened on the radio in 1963 as The Beach Boys sang “Be True to Your School.” The tune describes what it was like to “be jacked on the football game”…and the school pride associated with letting “your colors fly.”

Four of the original members of The Beach Boys attended Hawthorne (Calif.) High School, so the song features an instrumental segment of the Hawthorne Cougars’ fight song (to the melody of “On, Wisconsin.”) Well, dagnabbit! The recording sounds identical to the Carteret County, N.C., Croatan Cougars’ fight song.

David Mekeel of the Reading (Pa.) Eagle also chimed in on this subject of high school football. He said: “The pounding of the drum line still elicits excitement and anticipation.” He said he still gets “way, way too excited” for Blue Streak football at Manheim Township High School in Lancaster County, Pa.

“The nostalgia has been palpable. I remember vividly being about 12 and having my parents drop me off at the game on a Friday night,” Mekeel wrote. “In retrospect, at the time ‘it was everything.’ It was the most important part of those fall weeks for me, and missing even one would have been devastating.”

“As I find myself back in that setting as an adult, it makes me smile to watch kids who seem to feel the same way.”

Nostalgia can strike one at any age. In 2016, Destiny Wright of Monroe, Ga., wrote an online essay for her Odyssey community network at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, while she was a college senior. “All my life, I have heard that high school…would be the best years of my life,” she said, and what she misses most are “Friday Night Lights.”

“I feel like ‘The Boys of Fall’ by Kenny Chesney was literally written for our little high school football team (the Purple Hurricanes). Every home game, we played this song over the loud speakers, and I kid you not, I got chills. Every time.”

“Some of my favorite high school memories revolved around those Friday nights spent with the whole town celebrating our love for football and our school,” she added.

Kenny Chesney recorded the song in 2010 for his own high school (as well as for Destiny Wright’s, of course.) Chesney was a small but speedy wide receiver (#7) for the Gibbs High School Eagles in Corrytown, Tenn., graduating in 1986.

One of “The Boys of Fall” songwriters was Casey Beathard. His own son, C. J. Beathard, has played football at every level. C. J. was a standout high school quarterback in Franklin, Tenn., playing for the Battle Ground Academy Wildcats. He went on to star as quarterback with the University of Iowa Hawkeyes and is now a member of the San Francisco 49ers in the National Football League.

Lyrics in “The Boys of Fall” link a lot of small communities – like Corrytown and Monroe…as well as places like Morehead City, Newport and Beaufort – during high school football season. Listen in:

When your back’s against the wall,

You mess with one man, you got us all.

The boys of fall.

In little towns like mine, that’s all they’ve got.

Newspaper clippings fill the coffee shops;

The old men will always think they know it all.

Young girls will dream about the boys of fall.

Hopes this makes you want to sing your own high school’s fight song.

Presidential cats have a historical impact

Caroline Kennedy’s pet cat didn’t last long in the White House. Tom Kitten arrived in January 1961 but was diplomatically relieved of his duties as “First Cat” within a couple of weeks. His discharge was not attributed to misbehavior, however.

Shucks, Tom Kitten couldn’t help it that he made President John F. Kennedy sneeze and cause his eyes to water and swell up.

Tom Kitten, who drew his name from the classic children’s book, The Tale of Tom Kitten, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter in 1907, gained a lot of publicity, according to the Presidential Pet Museum.

When White House reporters asked Kennedy’s press secretary Pierre Salinger what was Tom’s breed, he responded: “Tom is gray with yellow eyes and of the alley variety.” Tom Kitten was reassigned to live out his life in the home of Mary Gallagher, who was the personal secretary to First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

The pet museum archivist wrote that Gallagher had two sons around Caroline’s age. (She was 3 at the time.) “Gallagher often arranged for Caroline to come over to play – with the boys and the cat.

When Gerald Ford moved into the White House in 1974, daughter Susan Ford was a high school student. Her pet Siamese cat was named Shan, who slept in Susan’s bed at night and spent her days trying to avoid Liberty, the president’s gregarious golden retriever.

One of the highlights of Shan’s career was attending Susan’s senior prom, held on Shan’s turf, the East Room of the executive mansion in 1975. It was the first and only prom staged in the White House.

Of all the pets to occupy the White House, Amy Carter’s Siamese cat probably had the strangest name – Misty Malarky Ying Yang. President Jimmy Carter served from 1977-81. Amy was 9 when the family moved into the White House.

“Misty was active, playful and intelligent,” said Claire McLean, founder of the Presidential Pet Museum. “Misty was totally devoted to Amy, even sleeping in the girl’s dollhouse. Misty often sat in on Amy’s violin sessions, meowing.”

And the most fun fact of all, McLean said is that “despite Misty’s seemingly female moniker – he was, in fact, a boy named Misty.” (What a dagnabbit-good story that is!)

President Bill Clinton’ daughter Chelsea was 12 when the family entered the White House in 1993. Chelsea’s pet cat was named Socks, a classic black-and-white tuxedo cat. He was homeless when Chelsea adopted him in 1991, while the Clintons were living in Little Rock, Ark.

President Clinton dubbed Socks as “Chief Executive Cat,” and the cat had his own fan club page on the White House website and his own in-box for the fan mail. However, Socks was not happy when the Clintons acquired Buddy, a Labrador retriever in 1997.

“Socks found Buddy’s intrusion intolerable,” according to First Lady Hillary Clinton. “Socks despised Buddy from first sight, instantly and forever.” The president quipped: “I did better with the Palestinians and the Israelis than I ever did with Socks and Buddy.”

President George W. Bush brought the family cat named India to the White House in 2001. She was solid black and nicknamed “Willie.” The Bush administration’s website reported that the cat was “known to be very shy and reclusive, preferring to hang out in the White House library.”

In the United States, cats outrank dogs in population, according to the statisticians at worldatlas.com. In its 2018 pet census, there are about 93.6 million cats in America, compared to about 79.5 million dogs.

Pro-cat people include Dr. Mary Bly, a Shakespearean professor at Fordham University in New York City. She contends: “Dogs come when they’re called; cats take a message and get back to you later.”

Humorist Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), who lived with 19 cats, said: “If animals could speak, the dog would be a blundering outspoken fellow; but the cat would have the rare grace of never saying a word too much.”

Biographer Albert Biglow Paine said: “Twain suffered from nervousness about his writing,” and his cats helped calm him.

Twain also taught one to play billiards, said blogger Elizabeth Fais. “One special kitten played pool with Twain. He would tuck the male kitten into one of the corner pockets,” she wrote. “The kitten swiped at the balls as they darted by, amusing Twain to no end. Rejuvenated by the kitten’s antics, Twain could then return to his writing.”