His father, Henry R. Ward, was an Alabama native who moved to Detroit and worked there in a Ford Motor Company factory.

Ward has an ideal build for a track man, six feet, one inch tall, 185 pounds of well-distributed weight, good legs, natural co-ordination.

The Associated Press reported: "University of Michigan track fans do a lot of worrying these days because a Negro boy from Detroit insists on playing football.

Well wishers even have told him about the advantages of competing only in track and staying away from the gridiron, but he is determined to play on the eleven, and he is good enough to make the grade.

During Fielding Yost's tenure as coach several African-American students joined the football team, but records indicate that none of them ever saw game action and only one earned even a "reserve letter".

[8] Some reports attribute the de facto segregation of the football team to racism on the part of Yost, who was the son of a Confederate soldier.

[14] Ivy Williamson, captain of the 1932 football team, greeted Ward at the field house and told him, "If you have any problems with anybody, let me know because we're prepared to take care of them.

"[9] Reporting on his decision to play football and risk injury, the Associated Press noted: "Ward would rather win an 'M' on the gridiron than be an Olympic champion.

Unless injuries hamper him it is likely he will be as great an attraction or possibly even greater than the two Negro track stars who preceded him here, DeHart Hubbard and Eddie Tolan.

high hurdles, he forced Ohio State's Jack Keller to world's record time of 14.1 sec., finished a close second.

They made his the most efficient individual performance in a Big Ten meet since Carl Johnson scored 20 points for Michigan in 1918.

Quiet, unassuming, an above-average student of literature, Ward was the first Negro ever elected to Sphinx, Michigan's junior honor society.

"[18] At the Big Ten indoor track championship, the Michiganensian noted that Ward, "Michigan's all around athlete, was easily the outstanding star of the meet."

[19] Time magazine credited the work of Ward and halfback Herman Everhardus: "Michigan came perilously close to slipping from the top of the Big Ten, where it has been for three years.

That it did not slip was largely due to a crack halfback named Herman Everhardus and to Willis Ward, a rangy Negro end.

[9] In December 1933, Ward finished second in close balloting for the Associated Press Big Ten Athlete of the Year award.

[23] The 1934 football season proved to be one of the low points in the school's history, both because of the team's 1–7 record,[24] and the ugly racial incident that kept Ward out of the game against Georgia Tech.

[8] Petitions were circulated, and formal protests were lodged with the university by the Ann Arbor Ministerial Association, the NAACP, the National Student League and many other groups.

[9] One alumnus recalled that, the night before the game, "bonfires lit all over the campus echoed with screams of student anger, and 'Kill Georgia Tech' was heard throughout Ann Arbor.

[9] Playwright Arthur Miller, then a writer for Michigan's student newspaper, learned first-hand about the strong resistance among the Georgia Tech team to playing on the same field with an African-American athlete.

Not only did the visiting team rebuff 'the Yankee' Miller 'in salty language', but they told him they would actually kill Ward if he set one foot on the Michigan gridiron.

According to Time, Ward "sat calmly in a radio booth, watched his teammates defeat the Southerners, 9-to-2, earning what turned out to be their only win of the season.

"[27] The day after the Georgia Tech game was played, an editorial ran in The Michigan Daily stating "that everyone who touched (the Ward affair) did so only to lose in respect and esteem.

[28] The school's refusal to play Ward in the Georgia Tech game later became part of the public legacy of President Gerald R. Ford.

Ward recalled that he met "my man Jerry" during freshman orientation in 1932, and the two became friends and roommates when the football team traveled for road games.

"[31] Ford wrote about the Georgia Tech incident in his autobiography, recalling that he felt the decision to keep Willis out of the game was "morally wrong.

"[33] Ford used the story to voice his support for U-M's affirmative action admissions policy saying, "Do we really want to risk turning back the clock to an era when the Willis Wards were isolated and penalized for the color of their skin, their economic standing or national ancestry?

Following the 1936 Olympics and Owens winning four gold medals, racism back home led to difficulty earning a living despite his international acclaim.

Owens struggled to find work and took on menial jobs as a gas station attendant, playground janitor,[36] and manager of a dry cleaning firm and at times resorted to racing against motorbikes, cars, trucks and horses for a cash prize.

[38] In 1942, Ward worked as a director for the Ford Motor Company's "ad hoc civil rights division, serving as the liaison between black and white workers"[39] and an advocate for African American employees in the personnel department.