Gerald R. Ford played center for the University of Michigan football team. It was a position that called for him to anchor the line and work with those on his left and right. His steadying influence carried over into his political career, especially when he was thrust into the vice presidency and the presidency.

Ford played on two national championship teams and as a senior he was an all-star and most valuable player – but he was not a great president. However, he might have been a necessary president, because the nation needed someone with dignity and grace to calm the roiled waters of the Watergate era.

Ford eventually filled the bill, but not until after further rocking the nation with the pardon of Richard Nixon. That act was nearly universally panned at the time, and it cost the Republican Party dearly during the elections of 1974 and 1976. Ford could’ve handled that better, but he cannot be accused of self-interest. It was a courageous act. Whether it was wise is something historians will be debating long into the future.

Ford had the misfortune of being the first president to face the barbs of a new television program called “Saturday Night Live.” He was relentlessly lampooned as a klutz and a numskull, a caricature that belied his athletic prowess and Yale Law School degree. But that portrayal still defines him for a generation of Americans.

Ford’s defeat by Jimmy Carter in 1976 presaged the eventual demise of moderates within the national Republican Party. It’s intriguing to speculate on how the course of history would’ve changed had Ford accepted Ronald Reagan’s offer in 1980 to be his vice president. Would there have been a Bush dynasty?

What is clear is that his moderate philosophy would have been pushed to the fringes of the Republican Party regardless of his decision. In his later years, Ford supported abortion rights and gay rights.

Ford gained the highest office in the land without aspiring to it. Because he wasn’t elected vice president or president, he had limited political influence. It was almost as if he were a lame duck from day one.

To be fair, it is difficult to imagine anyone being a great president in the mid-1970s. Vietnam was falling to the communists. The global economy was being ravaged by oil shortages, high inflation, high interest rates and high unemployment.

Ford’s campaign to “Whip Inflation Now” was nothing more than a feeble cheerleading exercise, complete with kitschy buttons. But Ford’s successor, Jimmy Carter, was also dragged down by the nation’s economic malaise.

Ford’s greatest gift to the country was his simple decency. For 895 days at the White House, he delivered what most of his successors have only promised: civility and a willingness to compromise with political foes. His character was just the antidote the nation needed after continual injections of cynicism and corruption from the Nixon administration.

For that he deserves to rest in peace.