I attended the University of Michigan in the mid 1970s which was the apex of the Michigan- Ohio State football rivalry. The truth is nobody in Ann Arbor really cared whether or not Michigan beat Ohio State we all just wanted to beat Woody Hayes. My guess is it is much the same today, thirty years after the end of Woody's coaching tenure. I would venture to guess that almost everyone in Ann Arbor knows who Woody Hayes is but less than half can name the current Ohio State coach.
       Ah Woody how do we hate you let us count the ways. The rallying point for Big Blue fans during the 70s was the 1968 Michigan - Ohio State game when late in the 4th quarter with Ohio State leading 50-14 the crazy fuck went for a two point conversion because as Woody said after the game 'I couldn't go for three.' Then there was the 1971 game at Michigan stadium when Woody tore up the first down markers protesting a referee's call. There are numerous sideline tantrums by Woody during televised games including punching out a sideline cameraman. Following Michigan's 1969 superupset of Number 1 Ohio State Woody refused to use the word Michigan in public for the rest of his career, it was always the precious 'that school up north.'
       And finally there was of course The Punch. Click here to see youtube video of the punch also check out the video of 10 most unsportsmanlike moments in sports which ranks Woody's Punch at the top. Many wags have remarked that Woody Hayes's legacy endures despite him Punching an opposing player in the Gator Bowl who had just intercepted an Ohio State pass which led to his dismissal. They have it all wrong. The Punch is an essential part of Hayes story. If Woody had gone gently into the good coaching night his memory would be more like the laid back Joe Paterno . or the stately taskmaster Bear Bryant.
       There is of course another side to Woody Hayes. Jack Tatum in his book They Call Me Assassin relates his experience when as a high school football star he visited Ohio State:

I was amazed at Woody's presentation. He was overpoweringly blunt and to the point. There was no mention of money under the table, no young lady to entertain me, no fancy car, no sugar daddy; just education and football. I started talking with some of the other players who had actually spent time under Woody. Everyone said the same thing: 'He's a monster.' I couldn't understand. If the man was such a monster, then why did all these players stick it out? So I asked the obvious question, 'If that's so, then why stick?' Everone looked at me like I was some kind of fool. Then one guy stood up and said, 'We stick 'cause Coach Hayes is a great man. He doesn't lie, doesn't cheat, and doesn't steal, and he wants to win.'

       Woody Hayes' coaching style was a product of the Second World War. Hayes was a Navy Lieutenant who brought the mentality of military discipline, which was absolutely necessary to defeat Hitler, to the Ohio State football program in 1951. Although this played very well in the conformity dominated 1950s of General Eisenhower Woody became an easy target of counter culture reaction of the mid 60s. Because of the history involved and because Ann Arbor in the late sixties early 70s was something of a counter culture mecca Woody's visits there took on the aura of Satan visiting New Jerusalem.
       Ralph Waldo Emerson ( see also Emerson page at the internet encyclopedia of philosophy ) said that most men live lives of quiet desparation. There was nothing quiet about Woody Hayes' desparation. It was all out there in the open from his tearing up the sideline markers to his blithe refusal to say Michigan to The Punch. And that is why those of us who hate him also love him.