Finished a great book

I just finished a great book entitled "War as they knew it."

I tore through this book. I think I started reading it in between Christmas and New Years and finished it today. It was 325 pages and thats a lot of reading for me in a short amount of time.

Anyway the book was about the culture on college campus's at Ohio State and Michigan in the late 1960's and early 1970's. It was mostly about two legendary college football coaches, Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes and the Michigan and Ohio State rivalry. It was an awesome read.

What I loved best about Woody Hayes was his passion for teaching, academics, football and US History. Hayes loved Patton, which I liked. It was also refreshing to read that Hayes got on his players to graduate and to attend law school. I don't think any other college football coaches do that now. Hayes would also put in 14-16 hour work days. That makes me feel lazy and also gives me a tremendous amount of respect for the man because he gave so much. He gave everything. Hayes also treated himself like a faculty member, not a football coach. He refused to be paid more than the governor and didn't want pay raises even when he deserved them, especially if other faculty members didn't get them. Hayes would teach classes at Ohio State on Military History and would meet with faculty members to discuss politics and history. Hayes would walk three miles to work when he decided something needed to be done about reliance on foreign oil. When given the chance to resign at the end of his career he preferred to be fired because he didn't want to be called a quitter, and remarkably, despite how demanding he was he never fired an assistant coach. In his 28 years he never fired an assistant. What seemed most interesting about the man was that for as much as he loved football he would rarely talk about it when you thought he would. He would hold 7am staff meetings to talk about current events, history and politics. He'd never mention football on some recruiting trips and instead talk about Ohio State as the school and about History. Hayes was such a legend that he would be eulogized by his good friend and former President, Richard Nixon. As a matter of fact Hayes didn't want Nixon to resign. He felt Nixon was giving in.

Both Hayes and Schembechler were disciplined coaches. Schembechler wouldn't tolerate lateness. Both coaches were also run oriented, which I like. I wish there was more running in the NFL. It's unbelievable to me how often running backs don't get 100 yards and how often quarterbacks throw for 300 or more yards.

You got a sense from reading that Schembechler and Hayes played by the NCAA rules and were great coaches and great leaders on and off the field. You got the sense that college football would be better with them.

The book also talked about Don Canham, the athletic director at Michigan who understood marketing and merchandising. He was a revolutionary figure in college athletics because he was the first to sell everything imaginable with his school's colors on it. He also understood the importance of selling the game day experience so that fans would want to come to games regardless of his teams record.