Martha Ford
Until not so long ago, it was "Martha Ford, who?"
But with the passing of her husband William Clay Ford in 2014, Martha Ford, 90, has taken over the Detroit Lions and has been shaking it up, turning things upside down and making a name for herself.
Joe Lapointe, a former Detroit Free Press and New York Times sports writer, freelances a Detroit News piece on Ford, a Vassar College graduate whose paternal grandparents were Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. founder Harvey Samuel Firestone and his wife Idabelle Smith Firestone:
Martha Firestone Ford has become a powerful public figure with a vigorous presence around the football team she inherited and the NFL. She’s an overnight sensation, 90 years in the making.
Although still shy of the media, her full control of the Lions was emphasized Nov. 5 when she fired team president Tom Lewand and general manager Martin Mayhew after a 1-7 start.
Both were holdovers from the days when her husband and their only son, William Clay Ford Jr., ran the team.
People got the message, according to Glover Quin, a free safety.
“If they get rid of a GM and a president at midseason, everybody’s on the chopping block,” Quin said. “So you better be out there playingfor your job."
Ford is shielded at game at Ford Field by black curtains around the elevators and the corridors along her path, Lapointe writes.
“She doesn’t want the fans to see her,” a security guard explains.
