Eleven Warriors

Twenty-five years ago today, on March 12, 1987, legendary Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes died at the age of 74.

Had he lived, he would have been 99 this year.

He was head coach of the Buckeyes for 28 seasons, from 1951-1979. Prior to coaching at OSU, he served in the U.S. Naval Reserve and coached in Ohio at Denison and Miami. He compiled a 238-72-10 career record.

To honor Coach Hayes' legacy, below is the transcript of the eulogy given at his memorial service by Richard M. Nixon.

The Dispatch Library staff would like to thank the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum for kindly sending us a copy of the transcript.

Former President Richard M. Nixon eulogizes Hayes at a memorial service attended by 1,400 people on March 17, 1987. The service was held at First Community Church in Marble Cliff, near Grandview Heights and Upper Arlington.

A TRIBUTE TO WOODY HAYES

Remarks by Former President Richard Nixon at the Memorial Service for Coach Woody Hayes

Columbus, Ohio -- March 17, 1987

I vividly recall the time I first met Woody Hayes thirty years ago. It was right after the Ohio State-Iowa football game in 1957. It was a great game. Iowa led 13 to 10 in the middle of the fourth quarter. Ohio State had the ball on their own 35-yard line. A big sophomore fullback, Bob White, carried the ball eleven straight times through the same hole inside left tackle. It was three yards in a cloud of Hawkeyes. He finally scored. Ohio State won 17 to 13. It was Woody Hayes’ second national championship.

Afterwards, at a victory reception, John Bricker introduced me to Woody. I wanted to talk about football. Woody wanted to talk about foreign policy. You know Woody -- we talked about foreign policy.

For thirty 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. Instead of a cold, ruthless tyrant on the football field, I found a warm-hearted softie -- very appropriately born on Valentine’s Day -- who often spoke of his affection for his boys, as he called them, and for his family.

I am sure that Woody wouldn’t mind if I shared with you a letter he wrote to me shortly after Mrs. Nixon had suffered a stroke ten years ago.

"You and I are about the two luckiest men in the world from the standpoint of our marriages with your Pat and my Anne. I know that you will agree that neither of us could have done better and neither of us deserves to do so well."

I saw another Ohio State game on New Year’s Day in 1969. The Buckeyes were playing USC, Mrs. Nixon’s alma mater, in the Rose Bowl. O.J. Simpson electrified the crowd in the first quarter when he made one of his patented cutbacks after going over left tackle and sprinted 80 yards for a touchdown. But the Buckeyes came roaring back in the second half and crushed the Trojans 27 to 16. It was Woody’s third national championship.

He could have quit then, with three national championships and seven Big Ten championships. He had to know that it was a risk to stay on. It is a rule of life that if you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you will win no victories. Woody did not believe in playing it safe. He played to win.

In the next nine years, he won some great victories, including a record six straight Big Ten championships from 1972 to 1977. He also suffered some shattering defeats. The incident at the Gator Bowl in 1978 would have destroyed an ordinary man. But Woody was not an ordinary man. Winston Churchill once said: "Success is never final. Failure is never fatal." Woody lived by that maxim. He was never satisfied with success; he was never discouraged by failure.

The last nine years of his life were probably his best. He made scores of inspirational speeches all over the country. He gave all of the honorariums from those speeches to the Woody Hayes Cancer Fund at Ohio State University. He raised tens of thousands of dollars for crippled children in his annual birthday/Valentine’s Day phonathons. He gave pre-game pep talks to his beloved Ohio State team, now coached by one of his boys, Earle Bruce. He basked in the warm glow of tributes which were showered upon him by those who played under him and others who had come to know him, love him, and respect him.

Last year, the national association of college and high school coaches capped his career by honoring him with the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award. They honored him as an outstanding coach, but even more important, they honored him as a great humanitarian.

Two thousand years ago, the poet Sophocles wrote: "One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been."

We can all be thankful today that in the evening of his life, Woody Hayes could look back and see that the day had indeed been splendid.