Thursday, November 25, 2010

WOODY HAYES, A LEGEND AMONG BUCKEYES

T-minus 2 days and counting to the biggest rivalry in sports and I have to devote some time to one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, a man whose name still invokes the type of reverence reserved for saints in the state of Ohio, Woody Hayes.

Woody Hayes was the Head Coach at OSU from 1951-1978. While at Ohio State, Woody Hayes coached the Buckeyes to a record of 205-68-10. Different people have different opinions of Woody, but all would agree on one thing -- he absolutely despised and refused to lose. People can label Woody Hayes as many things, but the one thing he was without question was a winner. He won four national championships, won 13 Big Ten titles, played in 8 Rose Bowls (including four straight from 72-75), produced 56 All-Americans, and had three Heisman Trophy winners.

The phrase "three yards and a cloud of dust" came from his conservative style of predominantly running the ball down opponent's throats. Woody believed that the pass should be used as an element of surprise; "There are three things that can happen when you pass, and two of them ain't good," he would say.

There are two stories that circulate about Woody Hayes that I love and they both involve his special hatred for that team from up north. Hayes was famous for his hatred for Michigan and anything that had to do with the state (he referred to it, of course, as "that state up north" or "that team up north"):

One night on a recruiting trip in the state of Michigan, an assistant noticed that the car he was driving was going to run out of gas. He told Woody, who was dozing in the passenger seat, that he had to pull over for gas. Woody refused, and the assistant drove on. The assistant, who saw the weather was starting to get bad, began to get worried about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere, and once again stressed his desire to pull over and get gas. Woody erupted: "No, goddammit! We do NOT pull in and fill up. And I'll tell you exactly why we don't. It's because I don't buy one goddam drop of gas in the state of Michigan! We'll coast and PUSH this goddam car to the Ohio line before I give this state a nickel of my money!" The assistant knew he wasn't kidding, and they barely made it across the border and sputtered into the first gas station they found in Ohio.

The second story comes from Ohio State's 50-14 drubbing of Michigan in 1968. The day after the landslide victory, then assistant coach Lou Holtz approached Woody and asked him why he opted to round off the win with a rub-their-noses-in-it, two point conversion after the Buckeye's final touchdown.

"Coach, why did you go for two?", asked Holtz.

"Because." replied Hayes, "they wouldn't let me go for three."

Hayes' competitive drive and legendary temper would prove to be his ultimate undoing. He was fired in 1978 after striking a Clemson linebacker named Charlie Bauman who intercepted a pass to clinch the game for the Tigers. Ohio State was embarrassed, and they had no choice but to immediately fire Woody Hayes.

That final incident left a sour impression on Hayes' brilliant career, and it is the picture that many college football fans envision when they think of Hayes. But that shouldn't take anything away from the fact that he is one of the greatest college coaches ever. Buckeye fans by and large still love The Old Man as he was known and remember very fondly the days when he was coach. For most Buckeye fans, Woody always has and always will be the very essence of Buckeye football.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The Bike Lane Discussion

A discussion got rolling on Facebook today spurred on by this article in the NYT

I have been able to enjoy some pretty nice bike lanes, most notably in the Agoura Hills/ Calabasas area of Southern CA where I lived for five years. It has been my experience though that these were the exception and not the norm.  I have to say that I am not a huge proponent of bike lanes. Typically they are nothing more than an after-thought, an existing shoulder that the municipality paints a bike outline in and proclaims it a bike lane. Then it is ignored and becomes a lane filled with debris that I, for one, have no interest in riding in. Then as you inch into the car lane you get nothing but grief from drivers yelling at you to "ride in the bike lane". I think bike lanes also reinforce the notion that cyclists have no business on the road, that they are second class citizens who belong in these lanes or on the sidewalks. I would prefer that more energy is put towards educating drivers to the rights that cyclists have and how to share the roads with them.

Thoughts?

Friday, November 12, 2010

Zen and the Art of Training:

In a recent exchange with the Hedge Fund, he had this to say which pretty much hits the nail on the head to what my approach has been for both myself and my young padwan (who will remain nameless to protect the "innocent" - most of you know who he is anyway).

"...but one thing I just haven't gotten into is the counting. I guess I'm like that with watts though...maybe it's useful to know sometimes, but on a certian level it makes my mind take over and deadens a bit fo the "feel" component. I believe more and more in getting your head around macro principles but then using a lot of intuition and personality and maybe you could even say personal expression for the rest. We've all got our own way of going about things and if you can plug into that, and treat your "training" and racing more like an art show than like a science experiment, I think that's when it starts to click. You've just gotta live it, and counting shit takes me out of that.”

Amen brother.