It may have been the look on his face when his teams won, or the spite on his face when they lost, never the less, Wayne Woodrow "Woody" Hayes earned the respect from all of those who knew him.
Born in Clifton, Ohio, and a U.S. Navy veteran of WWII, his roots are here in Newcomerstown. The picture at left is a young Wayne Hayes at the approximate age of 10.
From 1951 to 1978, Woody served as football coach of the Ohio State University.
As history would have it, Buckeye fans and his Buckeye players alike, admired Woody for his tenacity for the game and his strong desire to win. And win he did. His record is legendary . . . 205 wins, 68 losses, and 10 ties.
Woody was the most argumentative coach in college football. The game was in his blood. "You can never pay back, but you can always pay forward." And that he did.
Every Ohio State Faculty member and student rides the wave of success that this man put forth, especially in terms of economics for the University.
If you think Woody was all about football, you thought wrong. A documentary of Woody, produced by WOSU TV provided this snippet of information on what kind of man he really was . .
Diane DeMuesy was a young nurse at the University Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, in the early 1970s. In one of the hospital rooms to which she was assigned was a young man dying of cancer. In the other bed in the young man's room was an Ohio State football player recovering from an injury.
The young man with cancer was thrilled to be sharing a room with an OSU football player. Imagine the young man's additional excitement when Woody Hayes showed up in the hospital room to visit the recuperating football player—and took the time to chat with the young man with cancer, also.
But that's not the end of the story. The football player was released from the hospital. The young man with cancer remained. And Woody Hayes continued to visit him.
"Woody was so busy," recalls Diane DeMuesy. "He could have made so many excuses not to come back. After all, the young man wasn't part of Woody's life. But I would walk by the room, and there would be Woody, talking quietly to the young man. Why did Woody do it? Because that's the kind of person he was."
The young man with cancer did not live long. Woody Hayes visited him up to the very end. When the young man died, a football autographed by the OSU team and a team poster were at his bedside-both gifts from Woody. "That young man's last days were comfortable and happy," Diane DeMuesy says. "And the reason was Woody Hayes."