NFBuck;2177073; said:
Woody Hayes was a great man. Flawed, but a tremendous person, coach, and mentor to many, many young men. He's a hero of mine. That said, if the Ohio State University's entire identity was wrapped up in his legacy, I'd be fucking ashamed.
Tried to rep you on this.
I took Coach Hayes' course and can tell you he was demanding. Each Friday there were two quizzes; one on current events and the other on the football he had lectured about on Monday and Wednesday. It was not unusual for him to throw a quote - especially something from Yeats- into his lectures, or to draw comparisons to situations in history or life.
When asked why he insisted on students being up to date on current events, he responded with, "Because you're going to leave here and most of you are going to end up being teachers. I don't want you to be the kind of teacher who puts coaching before teaching. That's not why you're valuable to a school. And you can't be a good teacher if you don't know what's going on in the world around you."
In April and May of 1970, with the campus about to explode over the war in Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia, Hayes was the only professor on the entire faculty who willingly met and talked to students on the Oval. Professors Ron Green and Bernie Mehl, who did much to stir up the students, "disappeared" when the riots broke out.
While other name coaches were demanding and receiving salaries that far outstripped that of their school's president, Hayes insisted that his salary remain in line with that of a full professor.
I had a great deal of respect for Hayes, then and now, but when he punched Charlie Bauman he crossed a line and he had to go.
