'He cared so much': Legendary OU trainer Tom Ford dies after long battle with ALS

The job description said "trainer."

But the scope of Tom Ford's impact on Oakland University athletics was so much bigger.

"If you made a Mt. Rushmore of Oakland, Tom Ford's on there. Period. End of story," said Neal Ruhl, TV and radio broadcaster for the Golden Grizzlies. "He's up there with (Greg) Kampe, he's up there with Pete Hovland.

"He left the world better than he found it. What higher compliment can you give to somebody other than that?"

Ford, Oakland's athletics trainer from 1988 until his retirement in 2018, died Thursday at his home in Rochester Hills surrounded by wife Kathy and their children. He was 65. In 2017, Ford was diagnosed with Amyotropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), commonly referred to as Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Ford was Oakland's "Iron Man" from his arrival until his retirement, which was hastened by the diagnosis.

He helped treat and befriended thousands of Oakland athletes during his tenure, and was proud of his school. He'd regularly greet everyone in the campus offices with a hearty, "Good morning, Golden Grizzlies," or, "It's a great day to be a Golden Grizzly."

"He was one of the most caring individuals you'd ever meet," said Oakland head women's basketball coach Jeff Tungate, who has known Ford since he was a baseball player at Oakland in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

"I mean, he treated every athlete and every coach like they were family. … I would room with him sometimes on the road when I was (an assistant men's basketball coach) with Kampe. And we'd get knocks on the door at 2 in the morning, somebody needed something. He'd treat an ankle at 2, 3 in the morning, to make sure they were ready to play the next day. He would do whatever to treat those kids.

"He cared so much about the student athletes, and so much about Oakland. He was always so positive, always had a smile on his face, always energetic, a great outlook on life. That was just contagious to everyone in athletics."

Ford graduated from Ball State with a bachelor's degree in 1981, and earned a master's degree in health/athletic training and sports medicine from the University of Arizona in 1982. His first job out of college was as an assistant athletic trainer for the Dallas Cowboys, and he spent six years as head athletic trainer at a high school in Houston, before he came to Oakland University — and never truly left, not even after retirement.

Ford remained in touch with former colleagues and athletes even after the diagnosis, texting and tweeting about Oakland athletics accomplishments until as recently as two months ago.

Even while bedridden the past couple years, he'd often text Ruhl during many Oakland basketball games. He eagerly anticipate Ruhl's catchphrase, "The cakes are on the griddle," meaning the Golden Grizzlies had the game in hand.

"He still watched every Oakland game," said Ruhl, who really got to know Ford at airport baggage carousels all over the country — each waiting for their heavy equipment to come down the belt. "He watched them all."

Ford was named the Michigan Athletic Trainer Society's Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award winner in 2012, and in 2016, he was inducted into the Ball State University Cardinal Sports Medicine Society Ring of Honor. Ford worked at the United States Olympic Sports Festival and Olympic Training Center with the men's hockey team, and he worked with speedskaters at the Winter World University Games in Bulgaria.

In 2020, Ford was inducted into Oakland University's Hall of Honor.

Upon entering OU's Hall of Honor, the athletic department renamed its spirit award the Tom Ford Black and Gold Spirit Award, which is presented to athletes each year at the spring Black and Gold Awards. It was fitting, as more than even his work, Ford was known for his spirit — and his relentless positivity, no matter the circumstances. He welcomed visitors as recently as May, and preferred when they'd give a thumbs-up in the photo.

In the 2017 press release announcing his diagnosis and plans for retirement, Ford quoted Forrest Gump, and Gehrig.

"Lou Gehrig once said in a speech that he considered himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth,” Ford said in 2017. “Well I’m here to tell you that I feel equally lucky. The university, the athletics department and the tremendous student-athletes that I have had the pleasure working with have made it fun to come to work every day.

"That will be the thing I miss the most, the relationships that have been built over time.”

When former student-athletes would return to campus throughout the years, they'd often be surprised Ford still was working at Oakland. He'd respond the same way every time: "I haven't graduated yet!" In 2017, after the diagnosis, he said, "This is not what I was expecting once I 'graduated'."

One of Ford's longest relationships was with Kampe, who arrived at Oakland just four years before Ford — when Oakland was a Division II school, with only enough money to pay one trainer. That trainer eventually went on to have his own Bobblehead.

Ford was asked in 2020 for his favorite memory from Oakland, and he said, "This is an unfair question," because there were too many to name, though the NCAA Tournaments for basketball and all the swimming and diving championships under Hovland certainly stood out.

But going from Division II to Division I was a particularly proud moment.

"We proved," said Ford, "that we belonged."

After announcing his diagnosis in 2017, Oakland held an emotional Tom Ford Day during a men's basketball game at the O'Rena. Kampe revealed "TFord" had been painted on the court, next to the Oakland bench, above the hashtag, #WEARTHEBEAR.

During a game this past season, a video tribute to Ford played at the O'Rena, as Ford's family watched, teary-eyed, from halfcourt. Ford could not attend.

In April, Kampe, Tungate and several other Oakland colleagues visited Ford to present him a plaque commemorating the naming of Oakland's Tom Ford Athletic Training Room.

"No one in the history of OU athletics has directly helped more student-athletes and been a trusted colleague to more coaches than Tom," said Oakland's athletic director Steve Waterfield, who was hired in the summer of 2018 after Ford had retired, but has gotten to know Ford and his family since taking the job. "Tom's legacy will endure through the people he helped, the athletic trainers he mentored, and the athletic training department he built."

Jeff Konya, Oakland's athletic director before Waterfield who now is the AD at San Jose State, once called Ford, "an institution at this university." Kampe has called Ford "part of the fabric" of his program, and the school.

Ford, who was an organ donor, is survived by wife Kathy and their three children, Tom, Travis and Keriann. Visitation is scheduled for Monday, from 3 to 8 p.m., and Tuesday, from 10 to 11 a.m., at Potere-Modetz Funeral Home in Rochester. A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the funeral home.

The family requests in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Ford's memory to the Tom Ford Athletic Training Room Endowment at Oakland University.

tpaul@detroitnews.com

Twitter: @tonypaul1984