Chairman Ford

William Clay Ford Jr. is fuming. The Detroit Lions, the football team he manages and co-owns with his dad, have just suffered a heartbReaking overtime loss to the Cincinnati Bengals--the second straight loss of the season. Disheveled and hoarse, he strides into the locker room and kicks a chair in disgust. "I'm sick of losing," he grumbles. "I hate this." But as sportswriters gather around him, he cools off, praises his coaching staff, and says only they will decide whether to bench quarterback Scott Mitchell for throwing two critical interceptions. "It's not all Scott's fault today," he says of the 34-28 loss.

Bill Ford Jr. is about to have a lot bigger problems than interceptions to worry about. On Sept. 9, he waS named to succeed Ford Motor Co.'s Alexander J. Trotman as chairman of the automotive giant founded by his great-grandfather Henry Ford nearly a century ago. Running a football team, of course, is small potatoes compared with overseeing the world's second-largest carmaker. But the chair-kicking episode gives a glimmer of what Chairman Ford will be like.