Ford attended DeMatha Catholic High School, where he is a member the
Hall of Fame. Ford has been an assistant athletic director at WVU since
1985. He was an outstanding running back for the Mountaineers during the
mid-1960's, becoming the first Mountaineer to top both 2,000 career
rushing yards and 1,000 yards in a single season. He tallied 2,166 yards
from 1965-67, the WVU career rushing record at the time, with eight
100-yard games and 120 career points. His 453 career rushing attempts
are still second highest in Mountaineer history and his 236 attempts in
1966 is currently the WVU single-season standard. In 1965, Ford led the
team in rushing with 894 yards. His 1,068 yards as a junior in 1966
placed him first at that time and is still the fifth best on the WVU
record books. Ford is one of only three running backs to lead WVU in
season total offense over the course of the last 35 years. He
accomplished that with 1,082 yards of total offense in 1966.
Perhaps his best performance came in a 63-48 win against Pitt on
October 2, 1965, when he rushed for a school record 133 yards in the
second quarter to lead the Mountaineers to victory. On the day, Ford
tallied 192 yards on 18 carries and totaled 268 all-purpose yards. A
second-team All-American in 1966, Ford played for coaches Gene Corum in
1965, and Jim Carlen from 1966–67. WVU was 14-13-3 during Ford's three
seasons at WVU.
After college, Ford was drafted in the third round of the NFL draft by the Denver Broncos. He played two seasons with Denver before returning to WVU as assistant football coach in 1970. He served as WVU athletics' academic counselor from 1977-85 before being named as assistant athletic director. Ford was inducted into the West Virginia University Hall of Fame in 1995 and into the School of Physical Education Hall of Fame in 2004.
