“Anything easy ain't worth a damn.”
So it is said. So it is written. So you are remembered.
Some called you Coach. Some called you Old Man. Others, just Woody. But you were born Wayne Woodrow Hayes to your parents Wayne and Effie and entered this world 104 years ago today, Valentine's Day.
A more than formidable football player first at Newcomerstown High School then Denison University, you lived a full life, complete with multiple years of military service in the United States Navy and much more on the sidelines. You are best known, however, for the 28 seasons you spent in Columbus as head football coach of The Ohio State University.
Passionate, demanding and even enigmatic — all ways people have described you both before and after your death in 1987. As a man, you cared nothing more than about how many victories and losses your teams finished with at the end of each college football season. And education. Boy, you loved education.
Your former players tell stories about you approaching them on campus to ask how class was going and if they needed any help. And how could we forget about those 6:30 a.m. mandatory vocabulary sessions with the freshmen?
You spent 32 of your 74 years on this planet molding young men as much on the gridiron as you did off it, first for three seasons at your alma mater, then two at Miami (Ohio) and finally Ohio State.
“I love football,” you said. “I think it is the most wonderful game in the world and I despise to lose.”
You hardly lost at your three coaching stops. Only 72 times (out of more than 300 tries) did your team finish on the wrong side of the scoreboard when the final horn sounded. In all, you won 238 games in his illustrious career, plus five national championships and 13 Big Ten titles at Ohio State.
You famously lost your job after the 1978 Gator Bowl, when the University sent you packing for punching Clemson's Charlie Bauman after the noseguard intercepted Art Schlichter's pass late in a game eventually won by the Tigers 17-15. Whether it was the three straight losses to Michigan causing the blood to boil out of the pot, your imbalanced blood sugar from being diabetic, it nearing midnight or something else entirely, your coaching career ended abruptly in an event that today would have gone viral in under 10 seconds.
In some sense, it was foreshadowed. ABC's Keith Jackson gifted you a pair of boxing gloves the day before at a luncheon. Always a topic of conversation, that testy temper finally got the better of you.
“There was no difficulty in reaching the decision,” then-Ohio State President Harold Enarson said. “There is not a university or an athletic conference in the country which would permit a coach to physically assault a college athlete.”
And yet, you cared more about players graduating from college than going to the NFL, wanted them to continue their education instead of pursuing a professional football career. You spoke to them about American history, had them read famous literature and study their interests — all with an eye to turning them into well-rounded men.
Another stunning tidbit about your career: You never fired an assistant coach in your nearly three decades as the boss of the Ohio State football program. Those assistants sometimes made more money than you did too because you refused to accept a raise.
A desire to be great and for those men you coached to be even greater stood above all. And translated into a mess of victories.
Remember that time you spoke to your players about avoiding apathy by joking that smoking a joint causes people to just stare aimlessly at their shoes?
Or when you punched a camera man late in the 1977 Michigan Game following a fumble?
Or how you urged your team to rip down the Michigan M Club Banner four years earlier because of the pure hatred you had for the Wolverines? The youth would call that move "savage" in today's age.
And nope, we can't forget the time you snatched a yard marker and chucked it toward the referee as the clock ticked down on Michigan's 10-7 victory against your Buckeyes in 1971. More savagery. Trust us, being savage is being cool.
Man, what a time to be alive. That 1973 tilt ended in a 10-10 tie, the fifth of 10 installments in The Game's preeminent chronicles dubbed the Ten Year War. That was when you took on your beloved star pupil. An Ohio native himself, Bo Schembechler worked for you in Columbus two separate times.
When the decade of teeth-clenching, heart-wrenching and otherwise glorious football competition drew to a close, Schembechler stood slightly above you with five victories to your four. We can only imagine what your discussions are like when those games get brought up in Heaven.
In all, you captured 16 victories over Michigan, falling to the Wolverines just 11 times. Your name is synonymous with The Game and your face constantly streams across the screen in this day and age of pump up video montages.
In fact, let's wonder for a moment what you would think about today's brand of football. With spread offenses now the norm and the Internet seizing — almost demanding — the attention spans of younger generations, it is hard to find too many people who appear willing to adopt your “I will pound you and pound you until you quit” mentality.
“I'm not trying to win a popularity poll. I'm trying to win football games. I don't like nice people. I like tough, honest people.”– Woody Hayes
We imagine your response to someone telling you about Twitter being something along the lines of, “What the hell do I care what other people are doing at this current point and time? How does — what's it called, Tweeter? — help us win football games?”
Well, coach, pretty much all men in your former profession have an account these days. It is an easy and efficient way to connect with recruits, as long as you do it within the ground rules allotted by the NCAA. Oh, and by the way, the sport's governing body is considering installing an early signing period. Did we mention that?
The days of signing as many players as you wanted are long gone. Urban Meyer just signed 21 highly-rated prospects — have you heard about recruiting rankings and websites? — and nine of them enrolled in January. And did we mention that only a third of them are from the great state of Ohio? That's the least flavor from the home state ever, trumping the mark of 36 percent set a year ago with the 2016 recruiting class.
Meyer goes after (and usually gets) who he wants to play football for him. It helps that he only lost six games in his first five seasons, yet some folks remain uneasy with that amount of defeats. Should we tell them you lost nine games in your first three seasons at Ohio State? Or had a losing season two years after winning the 1957 Rose Bowl and National Championship?
We also can't forget the six consecutive seasons Ohio State didn't win the Big Ten from 1962-67 — a stretch sandwiched between a pair of undefeated seasons and title runs. We can only imagine what would likely be a boisterous quote directed at fans of your beloved university upon learning of their negativity or worry over Meyer missing out on title chances in 2015 and 2016.
Yes, a 31-0 loss to eventual champ Clemson to end this past season left a noticeably sour taste in their mouths. But Meyer made changes that he feels will lead a resurgence if you even have to "bounce back" from starting your coaching career at Ohio State winning an average of 12 games per season. With great expectations comes great responsibility, we suppose. You know all about that.
But we think you would say something like, “Coaches who can outline plays on a blackboard are a dime a dozen. The ones who win get inside their players heads and motivate them.” Didn't you say that at one point? Our bet is Coach Meyer probably feels the same way.
He is a proponent of the spread offense, which we touched on before. Orchestrating it to win football games is a far cry from how you did it back in your day. Especially on your coaches show, where you paired some :fire-emoji: red pants with the glasses that everyone remembers you for.
(P.S. The guy coaching Michigan — the club you called That Team Up North — has been wearing them lately. He says it is to partly honor you, Malcolm X and Michael Douglas. Odd, right?)
Anyways, here you are dropping knowledge about the triple option in those glorious slacks.
What's a :fire-emoji: you ask? Part of this generation's way of communicating. Each emoji tells its own story and conveys its own emotion. Sorry. Forgot to bring that up earlier.
Here is something we will bring up: Earle Bruce (the guy Ohio State hired after your stunning exit) dotted the "i" in Script Ohio before the team's game against Rutgers this year on Oct. 1. You probably watched from above and critiqued the job Bruce did, how he walked, how he tipped his fedora to all four corners of The Horseshoe. After all, you dotted the "i" in 1983, only the third non-band member bestowed with the honor at the time.
But we won't take any more of your time. Imagine that Bo is upset with the fact we stole your attention for this long.
Happy Valentine's Day and Happy 104th Birthday. We hope the fire that burned deep inside you is still blazing.
