December 29, 1978: An era comes to an end for the football program at The Ohio State University. An ignominious end.
Football coaches had been abusing their own players for as long as there had been football. And Wayne Woodrow Hayes was no exception.
"Woody" was born on February 14, 1913, the exact same day as Yankee broadcaster Mel Allen and Teamsters union president Jimmy Hoffa. He came to Ohio State in 1951 after success at 2 smaller schools in Ohio, Denison University and Miami University. At Miami, one of his players was Glenn Edward Schembechler Jr. -- "Bo." Bo later served as Woody's assistant at Ohio State, and then as head coach at Miami.
Hayes led Ohio State to 13 Big Ten Conference Championships: 1954, 1955, 1957, 1961, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976 and 1977. However, some of these were ties: Only the titles of 1954, 1955, 1957, 1961, 1968, 1970 and 1975 were won outright. In the seasons of 1954, 1957, 1961, 1968 and 1973, he led Ohio State to win the Rose Bowl. In 1954, 1957, 1961 and 1968, the Buckeyes were declared National Champions.
Notable college or pro head coaches who had played or coached under him included Schembechler, Ara Parseghian, Lou Holtz, Joe Bugel, Bill Mallory, Bill Arnsparger, Dick LeBeau, and the man who succeeded him as Ohio State head coach, Earle Bruce.
His players included Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Jim Parker; All-Pros Jim Otis, Jack Tatum, John Brockington, John Hicks, Randy Gradishar and Tom Cousineau; and Heisman Trophy winners Howard Cassady and Archie Griffin.
In 1969, Schembechler became head coach at Michigan. What followed was "The Ten-Year War" between the master and the apprentice. Always the last game of the regular season, Ohio State and Michigan treated 364 consecutive days as if they were nothing but preparation for "The Game." It reached the point where you couldn't think of Woody without thinking of Bo, and vice versa.
Woody was a tyrant. It was his way, or the highway. His preferred method of offensive football was having his linemen open a hole in the enemy's defensive line, and sending a big fullback storming through that line. It's not clear who first described it as "Three yards and a cloud of dust." Nor is it clear what the man who thought of that line thought when Ohio Stadium switched from natural grass to AstroTurf in 1971.
Woody hated the passing game. He said, "There are three things that can happen when you throw the football, and two of them are bad," meaning an incompletion and an interception. He had nothing against quarterbacks, as long as they properly directed his running game.
If you didn't buy into Woody's system, he treated you like crap. If you did buy into his system, he would go to war for you. He was always willing to help out a former player. He not only coached football at OSU, he taught history there. He told his players the best thing they could do after graduating -- and they damn well would graduate on time -- was not play pro football, but go to law school.
And he was conservative as hell. He was pro-Nixon, pro-war, anti-long hair, anti-rock and roll, and anti-"New Hollywood," well past the point where such stands were no longer held by a majority of Americans.
But he was not racist: He gave black players a fair chance. In 1961, he coached running back Bob Ferguson, who nearly became the 1st black player to win the Heisman Trophy. He finished 2nd, to Ernie Davis of Syracuse, who did become the 1st black player to win it. He also coached running back Archie Griffin, who became the only 2-time Heisman winner, in 1974 and '75.
The only colors that mattered to Woody Hayes were the colors of the uniforms: If you wore Scarlet & Gray, you were his man; if you wore the other colors, he was coming for you.
And Ohio loved him. While most States have at least 2 major universities playing top-level college football, Ohio had OSU and several smaller schools. Cleveland and Cincinnati might have hated each other, but on Woody and his Buckeyes, they were in complete agreement.
That, and they hated Michigan, or, as Woody called them, "That school up north." The abbreviation "tsun" (never capitalized) began appearing around campus. This was before the era of social media, when Ohio State fans would use a red X in place of the letter M: "Going to Ohio StadiuX to watch the Bucks kick Xichigan ass."
But there was a dark side to Woody. There were always whispers of him hitting his players in practice, but most of those stories were kept quiet until after he was gone. In 1959, following a loss to USC, he wanted to hit Al Bine of the Los Angeles Examiner. He missed, and hit someone else instead. In 1965, at a meeting of Big Ten coaches and athletic directors, he got into a shouting match with Iowa's AD, Forest Evashevski, and lunged at him, with the others separating them before a fight could happen.
In 1971, Woody thought a Michigan player had committed pass interference, and that the officials had missed it. He ran onto the field, yelled at the referee, went back to the sideline, and began tearing up the sideline markers. He was assessed a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. He picked up the penalty flag, and threw it into the crowd. He was assessed an additional penalty, and thrown out of the game. So instead of being +15 yards, he was -30 and out of the game.
Unlike those earlier incidents, this was seen on TV, and couldn't be covered up. He was suspended for 1 game, and fined $1,000 -- about $6,700 in today's money.
In 1973, he took the field at the Rose Bowl, but saw an NBC camera get too close. He shoved the camera, and a news photographer was hit in the face with it. This, too, was caught on TV. He was suspended for 3 games, and was fined $2,000. In 1977, they lost to Michigan, with a late fumble clinching it. An ABC camera got too close, and he charged. The cameraman got out of the way. He was thrown out of the game even before the kickoff, fined $2,000, and put on probation by the Big Ten.
In 1978, he finished the regular season 7-3-1, finishing 4th in the Big Ten, the team's worst performance in 12 years. They still made it to a bowl game, the Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Florida. The opponent was Clemson University.
With 2:30 left in regulation, Clemson led 17-15, but the Buckeyes were driving -- to Woody's ironic surprise, thanks to the passing of a freshman, the best quarterback he ever had, Art Schlichter. (Schlichter's pro career was derailed by injury, and his personal life was devastating by the gambling addiction he already had on the Columbus campus.) The Buckeyes got to the Clemson 24, and it was 3rd & 5.
Woody went against his instincts, and called for a pass. Schlichter threw the ball, but it was intercepted by Clemson noseguard Charlie Bauman. He took the ball toward the sideline -- the Ohio State sideline. Enraged, Woody threw a punch at him. It bounced off Bauman's left shoulder pad, causing no damage. But it was still an egregious, unacceptable act.
ABC commentators Keith Jackson and the aforementioned Ara Parseghian (who had coached under him at Miami before building his own legend at Notre Dame) never saw the punch. They saw the play as it happened, and the punch happened in a jumble. The instant replay that was shown was from an angle that did not clearly show the punch.
But the Clemson players saw it, and they came toward Woody. The Ohio State players stepped up to defend the old man -- he was 65, but looked older -- and a bench-clearing brawl resulted. As in the 1973 incident, Ohio State was assessed 2 15-yard penalties for unsportsmanlike conduct. Clemson held its 17-15 lead.
After the game, Woody was approached by his athletic director, Hugh Hindman. Hindman had played for him at Miami, and had been an assistant under him at Ohio State. He told Woody that he was going to recommend to University President Harold Enarson that he be fired, and gave him a chance to resign with whatever dignity he had left. According to Hindman, Woody said, "That would make it too easy for you. You had better go ahead and fire me."
The next day, Hindman fired Woody. His career record was finalized at 238-72-10, 205-61-10 of it at Ohio State, 152-37-7 of that in Big Ten Conference games. He had gone 6-6 in bowl games.
He lived until March 12, 1987, at age 74. He never apologized for the punch. And yet, he is still honored at The Ohio State University. The mailing address of Ohio Stadium is 411 Woody Hayes Drive.
Bobby Knight was a student at Ohio State, and a reserve player on their basketball team that won the 1960 National Championship. He was a great admirer of Woody. That frequently showed in his tenure as head basketball coach at Indiana University: He ran a clean program where his players not only excelled, but graduated on time.
Unfortunately, Knight was a lot like Hayes in another way. He hit his players, kicked them, and was even once caught on video choking one. Despite winning more games than any college basketball coach before him, and winning 11 Big Ten titles and 3 National Championships, he, too, was fired in disgrace.
Somewhere, there must be a photograph of Knight and Hayes together.
Until I find it, I'll have to settle for this editorial cartoon.
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December 29, 1978 was a Friday. This was the only bowl game played that day. There were no NFL games, either regular-season or Playoff. Baseball was out of season. But 8 games were played in the NBA that night:
* The New Jersey Nets lost to the Kansas City Kings, 137-126 at the Rutgers Athletic Center in Piscataway, New Jersey. (It's now the Louis Brown Athletic Center.)
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Atlanta Hawks, 113-107 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia.
* The San Diego Clippers beat the Detroit Pistons, 111-107 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan.
* The Chicago Bulls beat the Denver Nuggets, 123-117 at the Chicago Stadium.
* The Houston Rockets beat the Milwaukee Bucks, 106-103 at The Summit in Houston. (This arena still stands. It's now the Lakewood Church Central Campus, the mega "church" of Dr. Joel Osteen.)
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Portland Trail Blazers, 118-95 at The Forum outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California.
* The Golden State Warriors beat the New Orleans Jazz, 118-106 at the Oakland Coliseum Arena.
* And the Seattle SuperSonics beat the Phoenix Suns, 119-92 at the Seattle Center Coliseum.
There were no games played in the NHL that night, but 1 game was played in the World Hockey Association: The New England Whalers beat the Birmingham Bulls, 5-0 at the Springfield Civic Center in Springfield, Massachusetts. (Now known as the MassMutual Center, the Whalers played here for 2 years while the Hartford Civic Center was rebuilt following the 1978 collapse of its roof.)
