Woody Hayes primarily coached the Ohio State Buckeyes in Columbus Ohio. Hayes coached at Ohio State from 1951 until 1978 and won 278 games there. He also won five national championships in 1954, 1957, 1961, 1968, and 1970 in his time at Ohio State. Woody Hayes is known as one of the best college football coaches of all time, but he was much more than that. He was a great man.
He was an author and a military history buff who gave much of his money to the Ohio State University. Woody Hayes was also way ahead of his time in terms of race relations. Hayes regularly played and championed African American players at a time when others were discriminating against them.
Woody Hayes Was An Author
Woody Hayes was an author who published a book called “You Win With People” in 1973. The book is an autobiography and recounts all of his success on the football field. The book recounted many funny stories from both life and football. It recounts quite a few entertaining stories.
An example is the 1968 game against the University of Michigan in which Ohio State was up 48-14 and went for two points after scoring a touchdown. When asked after the game about this curious decision, Woody Hayes reportedly (well, he wrote he said) he went for two because “He could not go for three.” What a way to treat a rival. The memoir also tells of the first five years of the vaunted ten-year war, when the Big Ten conference championship was decided every year by the game between Ohio State and the University of Michigan.
Hayes Was a Military History Buff
Current Ohio State Head Coach Ryan Day is the hire of Woody Hayes’ legacy. However, Woody Hayes was much more than just a successful football coach at Ohio State, he was a military history buff and university benefactor. Following his death, per his wish, Woody Hayes gave enough money to the University to fund an endowed professorship at the University’s Mershon Center for International Relations. John Mueller currently holds the Hayes chair in Military Studies. It turns out, coach Woody Hayes was a university benefactor.
Hayes owned hundreds of books on military history. He said there were countless parallels between military history and football. Indeed, history repeats itself. This is particularly true of military history and football. The old ball coach was well-read.
Hayes Was An Integrator
Woody Hayes was way ahead of his time playing African American players at a time when coaches were doing all they could to keep black players off the field. Hayes recognized early on those players could help his team win, so he did not care. Frankly, he would have played players who were green with pink polka dots if they had helped him win football games. Ohio State had a long history of playing African American players. The first one was Fred Patterson in 1890.
But, there were a couple of noteworthy players. First was Cornelius Greene, a black quarterback who led Ohio State to the Rose Bowl in 1973, 1974, and 1975. Football coaches are still reluctant to start black quarterbacks, but Woody Hayes started an African American ay quarterback 50 years ago. The second was Archie Griffin the only back-to-back Heisman Trophy winner in college football history. The running back was essentially unstoppable at Ohio State.
Conclusion
At Hayes’ funeral at First Community Church in Marble Cliff, Ohio on March 17, 1987, former President Richard Nixon delivered the eulogy before a crowd of 1,400, acknowledging the friendship that had begun between the two during his second term as vice president. Having met Hayes at a reception following a Buckeye win over Iowa in 1957, Nixon recalled, “I wanted to talk about football. Woody wanted to talk about foreign policy. And you know Woody—we talked about foreign policy.” The following day, more than 15,000 people took part in a memorial service at Ohio Stadium.
