By Jeff Watson

As the nation bids farewell to Gerald R. Ford, Jr., Americans honor the integrity of our beloved 38th President. Forty years before moving into the Oval Office, Mr. Ford’s strong-but-gentle leadership finds full blossom on the college gridiron.

Leading the Michigan Wolverines to two national championships (1932-1933), Jerry Ford is selected as the team’s Most Valuable Player (1934) and plays in the All Star Game on New Year’s Day (1935). Because of his athleticism, the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers offer him NFL™ contracts. Some would say that these honors are equivalent to winning the Heisman Trophy—a prestigious football award that didn’t begin until the 1935 season.

The Heisman? For a center who hikes the ball? In the 72 years since the native Nebraskan was honored by his “Go Blue!” team mates, this trophy has never gone to a center; instead, the award typically goes to running backs (e.g., Reggie Bush, USC, 2005) or quarterbacks (e.g., Roger Staubach, Navy, 1963).

If greatness were measured only by putting points on a neon scoreboard, then the Eagle Scout from Omaha might be judged a failure. To the contrary, this gentleman was no poster child for mediocrity.

In the ultimate Play Book, we are exhorted to be more like Richard Nixon’s surprising successor. From a Roman prison, Saint Paul affirms the same steady character that we saw in America’s longest-living President: “Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.” Such spiritual sanity reminds us that God did not meet Elijah in the “…great and powerful wind…not in the earthquake…not in the fire,” but rather in “…a gentle whisper.” If we were to borrow a lesson, we might learn not to look for God in the noisy glare of pomp and circumstance.