Lions owner William Clay Ford dies at 88

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DETROIT (AP) — William Clay Ford was born into a fortune
and spent much of his life staying away from fame as he steered the
family business and owned an NFL franchise.
The man reverently
referred to as Mr. Ford, the last surviving grandchild of automotive
pioneer Henry Ford and owner of the Detroit Lions, died Sunday. He was
88.
Ford Motor Co. said in a statement that Ford died of pneumonia
at his home in Grosse Pointe. He worked for the company bearing his
name for more than half of its 100-year history. He bought a business of
his own, the Lions, a half-century ago.
Despite ample opportunity to boost his ego in either role, Ford chose to carry himself in a quiet way
publicly.
"My
father was a great business leader and humanitarian who dedicated his
life to the company and the community," William Clay Ford Jr., executive
chairman of Ford Motor Co. and Lions vice chairman, said in a
statement. "He also was a wonderful family man, a loving husband,
father, grandfather and great-grandfather."
To the masses in the
Motor City, Ford was simply the owner of the Lions who struggled to
achieve success on the field despite showing his passion for winning by
spending money on free agents, coaches, executives and facilities.
Privately, relatively few people got to know a humble and humorous guy with great stories to tell.
Funeral services will be private, fittingly for a man who didn’t let the public get to know him.
"I
wish people knew the Mr. Ford that I knew," former Lions general
manager Matt Millen said Sunday in a telephone interview with The
Associated Press. "He was a very, very fascinating guy who played golf
with President (Dwight) Eisenhower, ran with the Rat Pack, talked to
President (John) Kennedy on the phone. As a kid who grew up sitting at
the foot of a grandpa who invented everything, talking to him was a
history lesson and I absolutely loved it every time."
Ford’s first
full season leading the Lions was in 1964, seven years after the
franchise won the NFL title. The lone playoff victory he enjoyed was in
1992. The Lions are the only team to go 0-16 in a season, hitting rock
bottom in 2008 after he finally fired Millen, a Super Bowl-winning
linebacker and TV analyst he hired to lead the franchise without any
front-office experience.
After an 11-year drought, the Lions
improved enough to make the playoffs in 2011 only to lose a combined 21
games over the next two seasons.
From Ford’s first season as team
owner to his last, the Lions won 310 games, lost 441 and tied 13. His
.441 winning percentage with the Lions was the NFL’s worst among teams
that existed in 1964, according to STATS LLC.
"I hate that we
couldn’t bring the Lombardi Trophy to Detroit for him," said former
defensive end Robert Porcher, who played on the Barry Sanders-led team
that won the franchise’s only playoff game since 1957. "After I retired,
I invited him and his wife to meet me at my restaurant. I didn’t think
he would come, but he did. He talked about his passion for the team and
how much he hated that we weren’t winning. Mr. Ford said to me what I
think people wished he would’ve said publicly."
Ford moved the club from Tiger Stadium in Detroit to the Pontiac Silverdome in 1975 before bringing his
team back downtown.
"No
owner loved his team more than Mr. Ford loved the Lions," Lions
President Tom Lewand said in a statement released by the team. "Those of
us who had the opportunity to work for Mr. Ford knew of his unyielding
passion for his family, the Lions and the city of Detroit. His
leadership, integrity, kindness, humility and good humor were matched
only by his desire to bring a Super Bowl championship to the Lions and
to our community.
"Each of us in the organization will continue to relentlessly pursue that goal in his honor."

Ford
Field — a spectacular 65,000-seat, $315 million indoor stadium — opened
in 2002 that, coupled with a state-of-the-art team headquarters in
nearby Allen Park, gave the Lions the best facilities money could buy.
But blueprints for consistently winning in the NFL are not for sale.
"Detroit
is a football town with fans who want to win — bad — but what they miss
is Mr. Ford wanted to win more than any of the fans did," Millen told
the AP on Sunday. "For a variety of reasons, it didn’t work out. It
wasn’t because he didn’t want to. He was willing to try anything and he
did."
Born in 1925 with what was already a household name, Ford
was 23 when he joined the Ford Motor Co. board of directors in 1948, one
year after the death of his grandfather, Henry Ford.
Ford remained a company director until 2005, later taking the title of director emeritus.
"Mr. Ford had a profound impact on Ford Motor Company," Ford CEO Alan Mulally said in a
statement.
He
helped institutionalize the practice of professional management atop
the company that began with the naming of Philip Caldwell as Ford CEO in
1979 and as Ford chairman in March 1980, without relinquishing the Ford
family’s control.
As a board member, Ford helped bring the
company back under his family’s control in 2001, when the directors
ousted former CEO Jacques Nasser in favor of William Clay Ford Jr.
The
youngest of Edsel B. Ford’s four children, Ford Sr. was first elected
to the Ford Motor Co. board in June 1948. He rarely spoke publicly but
was reflective during the company’s centennial year in 2003. At the
annual meeting, he told stories about his grandfather teaching him to
drive at age 10, and of being taken for his first airplane ride in a
Ford Tri-Motor by Charles Lindbergh.
"I just want you to know that
we have tremendous pride in the Ford name," he told the shareholders
more than a decade ago. "We have a spirit of working together, and we
have a passion for cars.
And we also have a great desire to see the
Ford name in the forefront of world transportation."
Ford was more
comfortable watching his Lions than maneuvering in the corporate
boardroom. By the time he became a Ford director, his brother, Henry
Ford II, was firmly in control of the company.
The Lincoln
Continental Mark II, his biggest project, was an early attempt by Ford
to compete with General Motors’ Cadillac brand, which at the time had
cornered the market for luxury cars sold to a growing class of affluent
Americans, according to Gerald Meyers, a University of Michigan business
professor who worked at Ford in the 1950s.
But the car was killed
off in 1957 after being on sale only two years, a victim of poor
marketing and Henry Ford II’s indifference toward his brother’s pet
project.
"He put his whole life into that car," Meyers said in an
interview with the AP. "This was to be the beginning of the high-priced
luxury vehicles for the Ford Motor Co. that they didn’t have. It would
lead the company into the broader market more like General Motors had
become. It didn’t turn out that way."
The car was a frustrating start to a series of efforts to make Lincoln a top luxury brand, efforts that
continue today.
Although
Ford personified the family’s influence over the company for years, he
seldom had a profound impact on it, Meyers said. He was often
overshadowed by his brother, Henry Ford II, who fired flamboyant
president and Mustang father Lee Iacocca in 1978. But Meyers said
William Clay Ford would have had to approve such a bold move to get rid
of Iacocca, who went on to lead rival Chrysler.
Ford always kept the Lions close to his heart and was loyal perhaps to a fault.
While
each of Detroit’s other three professional franchises — the Red Wings,
Pistons and Tigers — have won at least one championship in relatively
recent decades, the Lions were synonymous with losing under Ford.
He
seemed to lead the Lions with a light touch, leaving most decisions up
to administrators such as Russ Thomas, Chuck Schmidt, Millen and current
general manager Martin Mayhew.
In league circles, he was very popular.
"For
five decades, Mr. Ford’s passion for the Lions, Detroit, and the NFL
was the foundation of one of the NFL’s historic franchises," NFL
Commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. "As an NFL owner, Mr.
Ford helped bring the NFL through enormous periods of change and growth,
always guided by his commitment to what was best for the NFL and his
beloved Lions."
Ford was married to the former Martha Parke
Firestone, an heiress to the Akron, Ohio, rubber fortune. Her
grandfather, Harvey Firestone, was a close friend of Henry Ford. They
had three daughters, a son, 14 grandchildren and two
great-grandchildren.
___
AP Auto Writer Tom Krisher contributed to this report.
___
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