Bice eee EE aT eT A ea OT

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‘produced great

-" Had Ohio State’ University. d
“ago—as it finally did five years “‘back—to. go-

bigtime in U.S: intercollegiate hockey, Harry

Neale likely -would not be coaching the Van- -
_couver Canucks today.

He'd still be: at Ohio State,

in charge of the hockey

program he ran from 1966 to
197). And probably he’d still
be trying—until the man was
fired a couple of weeks
ago—to get Woody Hayes
out to see his first hockey
game there. -

Neale was saying the other
day he kept trying to get
Hayes interested, but the
tempestuous football coach
would have none of it.

“He always told me ‘I like
hockey, but I don’t go to the
‘games because I can’t stand
the organ music.”

For that statement t alone,
no doubt there are now
many Pacific Coliseum
patrons’ who feel a little
more kindly towards the
legendary martinet who
fottball
teams at OSU for 28 seasons,

but never learned to put a_

cap on his temper.

If all the noses-—players’,
photographers’, reporters’,
TV cameramen’s and fans’—
he punched in his long
career were to be assembled
in one place so they could
sneeze in unison, the wind
would sweep from one end
of Ohio to the other.

One guy he never had
occasion to swing on was
Neale, who. went to Ohio
State to take over the
hockey program started a
year earlier by Gien Son-

mor, now coach of the
NHL’s Minnesota North
Stars. .

The move from a high
school teaching job in
Hamilton was a dua! purpose
one. He wanted to get into
coaching and he wanted to
get his MA in education. He
was able to do both in his
four years there while ab-
sorbing a bookful of Woody
Hayes stories.

Dedicated televised bowl
viewers during the recent
Christmas-New Year scason
ano doubt retain vivid
memories of the Gator Bowl
incident that
Hayes his job.

When a Clemson player
intercepted a pass right in
front of the Ohio State bench
and made the mistake of
taunting Hayes, Woody
charged onto the field and
clobbered him with a
roundhouse nght. When his
own players rushed over to
pull him away, he belted one
of them, too. The following
morning he was fired.

finally cost

“All his players had to
take three required phys ed
courses,”” Neale was
remembering, “and Woody

sent a lot of his players over |

to the one I ra 2
hockey. Some of his best
ones: took part—IJo
Brockington, Rex Kern,
Jack Tatum, Jim Otis and
Ted Provost, who later
played in Regina.”

“They couldn't even skate
when they started. But they
were good athletes and they
soon learned. I lived in fear
after that, because once they
got pretty good on the
blades, they also got
physical. CO

“They skated around,

hitting each other and diving

“st one another. I just. kept

my fingers crossed and
prayed nobody would tear

up a knee or dislocate a

shoulder. I could.

imagine
_~» what-would happen if I had

to go over'to his office one
day and say: ‘sorry about

_this,, Woody, but your first

string quarterback...’ Pow!
Thats what would have
happened.”

Hayes had two obsessions:

football and military tactics.

“I. knew him just well
enough to say ‘hi’ whenever
we passed. But you never
knew what that could lead
to. One day he wouldn't even

‘acknowledge you. The next

day, he'd stop to talk and the
first thing you knew he'd be
launched- into a one-hour

lectare on Gen. George
Patton’s tactics in the
Second World War.

“But that was _no
compared with what his
football assistants had to get

reacted to certain moves. by
- a couple of German panzer
divisions. -

“Thea a he'd wheel on one

Paton do the ight hing?

he have done?’ If the coach.
didn’t have the answers right
away, he’d give him hell. ©

“Those assistants earned
their money. He gave some
of them strange jobs. Lou
Hol, now the head coach at
Arkansas, had to phone the
weatherman every night to
sec if it was going to rain.

“If rain was predicted,
he’d order the night shift at
the stadium to roll out the
tarpaulin on the practice
field before they went home.
One night he didn't bother.
He went into his front yard
and all he could see in the

sky was stars. But at 3 a.m.

there wds a massive thun-

. derstorm.

1

“The next day he was
afraid to go in and tell
Woody. He tried to talk
some of the other assistants

%
4 4 wet
. VISA
ae ‘

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