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/* Early Life */
At South High School in Grand Rapids, the younger Ford was all-city football center for three years and also made the all-state team. He played football career at the [[University of Michigan]]; in 1934 he was the Wolverines' most valuable member. He graduated in 1935 with a bachelor of arts degree. Ford declined bids from professional football teams in order to attend [[Yale Law School]]. He alternated semesters at study with work as an assistant football and freshman [[boxing]] coach. Ford graduated in 1941 in the top third of his class and returned to Grand Rapids to practice law.
In 1942 he joined the Navy as an ensign. He served 47 months, including 18 months aboard the light aircraft carrier ''USS Monterey'' in the South Pacific, and was discharged in January 1946 as a lieutenant commander. He served as athletic director, then gunnery division officer, an assistant navigator with major operations in the South Pacific, and then a lieutenant commander. He encountered a near death experience in December 1944 during a vicious typhoon. He came close to being swept overboard from his ship. After the war was over in 1946 he returned to his law firm in Grand Rapids.
Three weeks before his first election, on Oct. 15, 1948, Ford married Elizabeth "Betty" Bloomer, a former model and aspiring dancer. Born in Chicago, she had lived most of her life in Grand Rapids and had been married and divorced. Jerry and Betty Ford had three sons and a daughter. She became a vocal and effective spokeswoman for important social and women's issues during and after her years in the White House, appearing somewhat less conservative than Ford himself.<ref>Maryanne Borrelli, "Competing Conceptions of the First Ladyship: Public Responses to Betty Ford's 60 Minutes Interview." ''Presidential Studies Quarterly'' 2001 31(3): 397-414. ISSN 0360-4918.</ref>
==Congressional Career==
