Ford helped out at his stepfather's paint store and grilled burgers at a local restaurant while in high school.

He also played a lot of football, eventually playing center for the University of Michigan. Both the Green Bay Packers and the Detroit Lions offered him contracts, but Ford turned them down because he wanted to attend law school.

Ford didn't gain admission immediately, so he got an assistant football coaching job at Yale, making $2,400 for the year in 1935. That would be $42,676 in 2014 dollars. He also coached boxing, helping him to pay down his debts and get a foot in the door at Yale Law School, where he was admitted in 1938.