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Woody Hayes Stormed To Football Glory At Ohio State

Woody Hayes captured three consensus national championships. And 76% of his Ohio State games. And the nation's imagination — all the way to the presidential level.

"Woody was one of the most dedicated competitors I ever knew," said Gerald Ford, who before he was president played football at Ohio State's hated rival, Michigan. "He was strong, fierce, but always fair. ... When I was in the White House, he was very supportive. Our friendship continued after leaving the presidency. It was a treasured relationship over many years."

Ford's White House predecessor, Richard Nixon, said of his meeting the coach: "I wanted to talk about football. Woody wanted to talk about foreign policy. And you know Woody — we talked about foreign policy. For 30 years thereafter, I was privileged to know the real Woody Hayes — the man behind the media myth. Instead of a know-nothing Neanderthal, I found a Renaissance man with a consuming interest in history and a profound understanding of the forces that move the world."

Ahmad Rashad, the All-American All-Pro receiver, never played for or against Hayes, but felt his force: "When Woody Hayes was your coach, you always had an edge, because he was just so dynamic. There will never be another Woody Hayes. You can talk about Vince Lombardi, but I don't know who else you put in that category."

Fans believed with this banner: "God is alive and coaching at OSU."

Hayes (1913-87) coached there from 1951 to 1978. His Buckeyes stood atop America in 1954, '57 and '68. They won four Rose Bowls and gave him a career record of 205-61-10, vaulting him into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983.

Mountain Of A Man

He was a glacier in short sleeves defying the snow of frigid fall. "His dominant nature both on and off the football field captivated the world of college football and ... his commanding presence still resonates, not only throughout Ohio and Big Ten country but through all of sports," wrote John Lombardo in "A Fire to Win: The Life and Times of Woody Hayes."

Steve Greenberg, who co-wrote "I Remember Woody," lauds "his coaching, his commitment to education for his players, his high regard for humanity, his honesty and integrity, his love of country and those who serve us to keep a free nation and his unbending passion for Ohio State University."

He was the conservative king of the Columbus campus when it was stewing with protests against the Vietnam War.

"He had to overcome, primarily, a definite generational shift, especially in the latter quarter of his career," Greenberg, a resident of Carmel, Ind., where he co-owns a community publishing firm, told IBD. "The days of hippies, activism and free love didn't rest well with him, from what I'd been told, and it became a different breed of player he was coaching. I speak from experience, because I was of that generation. There was a lot of intolerance of authority and a different kind of single-mindedness, especially in the late 1960s and early to mid-1970s.

"Somehow, he was able to harness it and create what appeared to be true teams, true brotherhoods."

He was the coach whom other teams feared, noted Pete Quinn of Purdue: "Whenever we were playing another team, we all focused on our assignments, the guys we were playing against. But when we played against Ohio State, we were playing The Legend."

He was the boss whom John Johnson cheers 40 years after being a Hayes graduate assistant.

"Bo Schembechler described him perfectly at the funeral," Johnson, 72, who managed Buster Douglas to his miracle knockout of Mike Tyson in 1990, told IBD. "People asked him how could he stand to be around Woody Hayes. Didn't he work everyone too hard? Didn't he have a temper? 'Yes,' said Bo, 'but for those who worked with him, they didn't do it only because they liked being around him. They loved being around him.' He was fascinating. He was compassionate. He was awesome."

The man who drew so much love was born on Valentine's Day 1913 in Clifton, not far from Columbus.

He dived into football, baseball and boxing at Denison University, also close to the capital.

By 1935, he had graduated with a double major in history and English, and minors in Spanish and physical education. Then it was on to his calling — coaching in the Buckeye State — first at a high school near Canton. His three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust offense produced an 18-1-1 record in his first two seasons, and he would be hooked on the run forever.

Meanwhile, he ran into Anne Gross, his future wife, with whom he would have a son.

Woody had met his match.

"Football was my game," she said. "When I was in college, I wouldn't miss a football or basketball game for love nor money. When Woody was (a high school coach), we'd go somewhere and scout. That was my date."

Hayes had joined the Navy by the time America sailed into World War II. In the spring of 1942, he shipped out to the Pacific.

Peace And Football

With the war over by 1946, he returned to Denison, this time as head coach. He wasted little time forging the school's first unbeaten season in 58 years and continued rising, taking over at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Then came 1951 and the Ohio State job.

Upon taking Anne and son Steve to check out their new football home, massive Ohio Stadium, the 6-year-old asked: "Isn't that the same size as the one at Miami?"

Woody: "Yes. The field is the same, and the game is the same wherever it is played."

Hayes was hardly the same among coaches. Even now, the Bleacher Report ranks him 10th of all time. Greenberg also looks up: "For his era, I would say, depending on the year, it was Woody or Bear Bryant at the top."

Hayes left no doubt in the 1954 season, capping a 10-0 romp with a 20-7, No. 1-clinching triumph over the University of Southern California in the Rose Bowl. "In addition to us, I'd say that Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Purdue and possibly Minnesota — although we didn't play them — were better than Southern Cal," Woody insisted, sticking up for his Big Ten Conference.

That was a Hayes trait to the hilt, said Greenberg: "Woody was fiercely loyal to those who played for him, and that extended well beyond the echo of the final whistle. He cared as much, maybe more, about making sure his players graduated, that they go on and lead productive, fruitful lives. He was protective of his troops, as would be any good general."

Applause

Tom Matte, a Hayes quarterback in 1959 and 1960, never forgot: "He was brutal to play for. But he bailed me out of jail my junior year, and he protected us. He also made sure I graduated, and when I did, he called my parents to tell them."

Jack Tatum, a safety, also recalled his coach fondly: "I was all set to go to Syracuse to follow in Jim Brown's footsteps. But then Woody came to the house and pretty much recruited my mother. . . . When he left, my mom said she liked him because he had little holes in the bottoms of his shoes. She said that a man so famous who had holes in his shoes fit in with us."

Tatum was in the thick of Woody's Kiddie Corps of 1968: "a year of protest, war, assassination, rebellion, riots and civil unrest, and the upheaval rolled along High Street and through the Ohio State campus," wrote Lombardo.

Hayes preferred the 1950s, "when the air was clean and sex was dirty." Still, his '68 Buckeyes cleaned up with another national championship, climaxed by a whipping of O.J. Simpson's USC Trojans in the Rose Bowl.

"It was the best football team I ever had," said the coach.

The next year's version might have been better, crushing eight straight teams by an average of 46-9. Then came what many called the Upset of the Century: a 24-12 loss at Michigan.

A shocked OSU QB Rex Kern lauded Schembechler, the former Hayes assistant who coached Michigan that day: "Bo knew Woody so well that he even knew how Woody tied his shoes."

Hayes stayed atop Ohio State until he was fired for punching a Clemson player in the 1978 Gator Bowl.

Johnson, still a boxing manager, keeps Hayes on a pedestal: "Anyone could walk up to the coach and say, 'Hey, I need help.' He would help him. He was a powerful man who knew presidents. He got things done. He made a tremendous improvement on my life. Everything I've accomplished is because of Woody Hayes. He was incredible taking athletes and reaching the impossible. He simply had an unusual ability to motivate. He would accept nothing but the best."