Running start
By CHRIS ANDERSON
[email protected]
SARASOTA - Robert Ford never cooked meals because he couldn't read directions.
He paid cash for everything because he couldn't keep a checkbook. He never applied for jobs that required paperwork because he couldn't write reports.
He drove his car like a sailor lost at sea because he couldn't understand street signs. He navigated roads by recognizing trees, storefronts or the colors of parked cars.
He worked odd jobs, building ladders, roofing, cleaning swimming pools, and in 1990 he landed employment at USF in Sarasota as caretaker of the athletic facilities.
The students immediately liked him. He was pleasant and funny and genuine. Some found out he couldn't read very well and offered to tutor him.
He was skeptical at first. He thought they'd laugh at him, like they did when he was in school, only they didn't. They helped him, and before anyone knew it his reading skills had noticeably improved.
In 1998, he joined the Literacy Council, an organization that helps adults read. He's been an enthusiastic member for six years and is tutored twice a week.
Now he reads anything and everything. Now he reads well. He likes history, stories about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King. He enjoys the Bible, too.
His youngest son, Mike Ford, is a senior at Sarasota High and quite possibly the best running back in the state.
Depending on his grades and test scores, Mike Ford will have his pick of college scholarship offers.
His 44-year-old father has a surprise for him: wherever Mike Ford goes to play college football, Robert Ford plans on moving to that town so he can watch him play.
His reading skills and confidence have improved so much that he feels he can land a quality job anywhere in the country.
"Like I told Mike, 'You can be good, but you can also be good for nothing,'" Robert Ford said. "I think I was good for nothing. But I'm something now."
You can hear him coming
Mike Ford usually laughs as he approaches defenders. It's like the sound of a train whistle. Get out of the way or get run over.
Contact makes him laugh. Contact always did.
"My mom (Dondra) said I would run into walls when I was a baby and get up laughing and do it again,'' he said.
"When we were wrestling, he'd run into me and I'd brush him off with a forearm,'' Robert Ford said. "He'd laugh and come at me again.''
Mike Ford has it all: moves, balance, speed, instinct. But. . . ct. But what makes him the best running back in the area, possibly in the state, is his punishing style.
Sometimes you can actually hear him laughing from the sideline.
"He does nothing but chuckle when he gets ready to hit somebody or run somebody over,'' Sarasota coach Bob Perkins said.
"That may be the only key to know whether he's going to stiff-arm you or run you over. He's laughing when he's going to run you over. If he stiff-arms you it's quiet, like a cobra strike.''
His season has already been something special. He has rushed for 2,384 yards, which is a school record for a single season.
He also has 3,459 yards in two seasons at Sarasota, which is another school record for career yards. Ford transferred from Riverview after gaining 1,200 yards his sophomore year.
On Friday night, Ford set another Sarasota record with 368 yards against Naples Lely, eclipsing the previous mark set by Herb Haygood in 1996.
He now has a ridiculous streak of nine straight games with at least 200 yards rushing. The state record is believed to be 14 straight set by Frostproof's Travis Henry, now a running back with the Buffalo Bills.
That record is out of reach, however. The Sailors have four possible games remaining. Ford would fall one game short if he continued to amass 200-yard games.
Because Ford is so physical, Perkins estimates he has gained at least 300 yards using his stiff-arm technique and 400 yards just from lowering his shoulder and running through defenders.
"If he has the option of turning out of bounds or lowering his shoulder, he'll lower his shoulder 90 percent of the time,'' Perkins said.
He has developed a sense of when to use the stiff-arm, and he uses it well. It's powerful and extremely quick.
He has become so adept at it that he has been called for only one facemask penalty this season.
Ford thinks he learned the skill from boxing lessons a few years ago. He would punch the air with weights in his hands.
In addition to hearing his laugh, it's easy to tell when Ford is about to run over a defender. Just look at the defender's eyes. They tend to get real big.
"When I see that I think, 'I'm going to win this battle,'" he said.
It's also easy to tell when Ford is running someone over by the sound of the contact.
"It sounds like a gunshot, something like that,'' Ford said. "If my ears are ringing I know it's a good hit. And I know . . . 're hearing it, too.''
Mike Ford was always active growing up, always loved contact, and was usually dealing with pain of some sort.
He began playing football at 4. A short time later he thought he was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. He liked to wrestle with his dad.
And his mother was always taking him to the emergency room, it seemed. There was the time the long nail stuck in his heel and the time he nearly lost a finger while fishing.
When he was about 5, he almost drowned off Lido Beach. He wasn't breathing when someone pulled him out of the water.
And just like when he was little, he still likes to get a running start and jump into his bed. But the other night he missed the bed and hit the floor very hard.
He started laughing, of course.
Then he got up and did it again.
Turning the page
Robert Ford grew up near Quincy in the Panhandle. By 6 he was working in the tobacco fields.
He would haul the tobacco plants to workers who stacked them high in wagons pulled by mules. The work made him so strong that he would later become a standout wrestler.
In 1971, when he was 11, his mother died and the family moved to Sarasota.
By 1978, Robert Ford was a varsity wrestler for Sarasota High in the 167-pound division as a senior.
He lost a few matches his senior season by forfeit because he slammed guys too hard onto the mat. They used to call him "Bulldozer."
He went on the wrestle at Central State in Dayton, Ohio, but stayed less than a year.
School wasn't for him. School was too painful. What if the instructor called on him? Worse yet, what if he had to stand before everyone in one of those Wal-Mart-sized classrooms?
As a child he seemed to keep up with the other kids. By the time he was a sophomore at Sarasota in 1976, however, his reading skills were "the lowest you could get.''
"In 10th grade I could read a little bit to get by, but not good,'' he said. "I didn't want to study and I'd sit in the back of the classroom and didn't want to be called on.''
He earned just two credits his sophomore year. He earned three his junior year. By then he should have had 10.
He needed 15 overall credits to graduate. He had five going into his senior year. His wrestling coach would often come to his house and drag him to school. He also stayed after school quite a bit. Somehow, he graduated.
He received his diploma on time, but didn't . . k with his class. He was too shy.
A person who could bench press 610 pounds at age 21, was also too shy to have his senior picture taken.
He is 44 years old now and weighs 350 pounds. He strongly resembles Warren Sapp, though his personality is far more pleasant.
He has been separated from Mike's mother, a former basketball player at Booker, for about 17 years, but still keeps in close contact with Mike and attends all his games.
He will sometimes stand on the sidelines, catch his son's eye and thump his chest. He also gives him pointers during the game . . . and after the game.
He was a star once, too.
He has seen too many high school players think they will go onto professional careers, when in truth very few ever do. And if they don't have something to fall back on …
"Now you're on the sidelines with me," Robert Ford said. "You didn't listen.
"If I could turn back the hands of time I'd start over in 10th grade and just work on books. Try to become a lawyer or something. A fireman, anything.
"You got to have something to fall back on. I had nothing to fall back on.
"Good jobs I couldn't get because I was scared of the paperwork. Especially like a policeman or fireman, I didn't know how to write a report.''
He is asked how he thinks his life would have been different had he learned to read better at an earlier age.
"I'd have a nice home and probably still have my family,'' he said.
But maybe it's not too late. Maybe Mike Ford lands a football scholarship. Maybe Robert Ford lands a job. Maybe they land together in a town somewhere, a university town.
"Wherever he goes, that's where I'm headed," Robert Ford said. "I'm going to be there."
And wouldn't that be something? A son in college, and a father turning another page.
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