WOODY HAYES: The 100-Yard War

by Jerry Brondfield ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 11, 1974

As the football coach at Ohio State University for the past twenty-three years, Wayne Woodrow (Woody) Hayes has never concealed the fact that he's a curmudgeon and martinet who rules his hard-hitting troops with ""splenetic tyranny."" An historian-scholar and disciple of Patton, Hayes may be ""forever a creature of impulse,"" yet he's also a master of organization and discipline. His Buckeye teams are a sure example of military precision -- employing a conservative style of play, the running game is grinding and the tackling crunching. Twice named Coach of the Year, the OSU field commander has directed three national champions, nine Big Ten titlists and six Rose Bowl participants. Author Brondfield, a self-admitted ""Woody-watcher,"" has fashioned a portrait of the most recognized college coach of our generation within the framework of the Ohio State football tradition (there'd been a ""graveyard of coaches"" at OSU before Hayes took over -- six of them in twelve years). Most informative perhaps are descriptions of the team's exhaustive pre-game preparations and Hayes' salesmanship in the annual spring recruiting war. Physically tough, pressure-packed Big Ten football is indeed big-time competition and Hayes, a coach who hires three officials to referee his practice sessions, is not to be taken lightly.

Pub Date: Oct. 11, 1974

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1974

Categories: NONFICTION