jcollingsworth
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Making The List: Anne Gross Hayes
jcollingsworth via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Football is the blood stream of the faithful at The Ohio State University. There just isn’t a better time of the year. The Fall – some like it because the heat of summer disperses and the freezing of winter has yet to arrive. But, and this is true, we love it because it is Football Season.
With that said I have decided to do something a little different for this week’s Making the List. Throughout the course of this weekly piece we have acknowledged some tremendously talented Buckeyes of a variety of sports that have earned a re-recognition in our world that seems to only recall the short run as opposed to the history of what brought it all to us in the first place.
Today we will honor the wife of Woody Hayes – Anne Hayes.
Anne Gross and Woody Hayes met in 1939 while they both worked at New Philadelphia High School in Ohio. They would marry in 1942. In 1945, the Hayes’ welcomed their only child – a son, Steven Benton Hayes, now a retired municipal court judge in Columbus.
During Woody’s tenure as the Head Football Coach of Denison (1946-48) Anne would recall in biting humor a wondrous tale: “Woody said we should be living in the Avery-Hunter House.” The evidence of this humor shines because at the time the Avery-Hunter House resided the Lambda Deuteron Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta.
Of their two years at the Miami University of Ohio she would playfully say: “I just found the gravy bowl I have been looking for and now I have to repack it for Columbus.”
Naturally she is speaking of Woody’s hiring at The Ohio State University where the legend was born.
But this is about Anne ….
Anne was a brilliant and charming host who after college, and her short stint in teaching after marrying Woody, decided that loyalty to the man she loved was paramount. It is reflective of the era, certainly, of a spouse (most often the wife), who’d take the back seat to the raising star.
Some of the greatest lines that this charming First Lady of The Ohio State University would utter were:
Once asked about if she’d ever divorce Woody she replied: “Divorce never! Murder, yes!” It received such tremendous laughter that she used it often.
What many never knew is that Woody loved a good game of handball. Anne would say: “I was the only one who beat him. I never caved into his bullying … I showed him how handball was played.”
And the one I have found quietly funny is: In response to a LA sportswriter in 1973 who said: “How are you going to fight a guy who mentions Plato, Khrushchev, and Lana Turner in the same sentence?” She responded: “You don’t fight with him; you cook him a nice beefy stew and watch him shut up!”
Anne’s unselfishness is admirable and completely representative of people we all know. Perhaps in our own lives our spouse steps back when they too have so much to offer the world to allow us to enjoy our successes. I know I am lucky to have such a person in my life. I have never met a bigger supporter of all that I do and want then my wife. In Anne I see a love of a woman so powerful, so beautiful, so unintended for broadcast for the rest of the world to understand that it cannot be put into words – other than to allow her to explain it all herself: “Woody is the sweetest and kindest human being on the face of this earth. To love Woody is the easy part. To figure out if he is turning left or right is the challenge. I embrace it. Because I know before he does if it’s right or if its left and I am there to meet him face to face before he recognizes what happened.”
Upon my acknowledgment that there were so many others deserving of Making the List than the course I was heading … Anne was absolutely the first to pop into my mind. The loyalty and love that she clearly had for the High Priest of our faith (Buckeyes Football) is in fact what made him happy when he went home, which in turn produced the wonderful history that we all love.
Anne Gross Hayes is just as deserving as any other Buckeye for her part in our wonderful sporting lore.
The post Making The List: Anne Gross Hayes appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...
jcollingsworth via our good friends at Buckeye Battle Cry
Visit their fantastic blog and read the full article (and so much more) here
Football is the blood stream of the faithful at The Ohio State University. There just isn’t a better time of the year. The Fall – some like it because the heat of summer disperses and the freezing of winter has yet to arrive. But, and this is true, we love it because it is Football Season.
With that said I have decided to do something a little different for this week’s Making the List. Throughout the course of this weekly piece we have acknowledged some tremendously talented Buckeyes of a variety of sports that have earned a re-recognition in our world that seems to only recall the short run as opposed to the history of what brought it all to us in the first place.
Today we will honor the wife of Woody Hayes – Anne Hayes.
Anne Gross and Woody Hayes met in 1939 while they both worked at New Philadelphia High School in Ohio. They would marry in 1942. In 1945, the Hayes’ welcomed their only child – a son, Steven Benton Hayes, now a retired municipal court judge in Columbus.
During Woody’s tenure as the Head Football Coach of Denison (1946-48) Anne would recall in biting humor a wondrous tale: “Woody said we should be living in the Avery-Hunter House.” The evidence of this humor shines because at the time the Avery-Hunter House resided the Lambda Deuteron Chapter of Phi Gamma Delta.
Of their two years at the Miami University of Ohio she would playfully say: “I just found the gravy bowl I have been looking for and now I have to repack it for Columbus.”
Naturally she is speaking of Woody’s hiring at The Ohio State University where the legend was born.
But this is about Anne ….
Anne was a brilliant and charming host who after college, and her short stint in teaching after marrying Woody, decided that loyalty to the man she loved was paramount. It is reflective of the era, certainly, of a spouse (most often the wife), who’d take the back seat to the raising star.
Some of the greatest lines that this charming First Lady of The Ohio State University would utter were:
Once asked about if she’d ever divorce Woody she replied: “Divorce never! Murder, yes!” It received such tremendous laughter that she used it often.
What many never knew is that Woody loved a good game of handball. Anne would say: “I was the only one who beat him. I never caved into his bullying … I showed him how handball was played.”
And the one I have found quietly funny is: In response to a LA sportswriter in 1973 who said: “How are you going to fight a guy who mentions Plato, Khrushchev, and Lana Turner in the same sentence?” She responded: “You don’t fight with him; you cook him a nice beefy stew and watch him shut up!”
Anne’s unselfishness is admirable and completely representative of people we all know. Perhaps in our own lives our spouse steps back when they too have so much to offer the world to allow us to enjoy our successes. I know I am lucky to have such a person in my life. I have never met a bigger supporter of all that I do and want then my wife. In Anne I see a love of a woman so powerful, so beautiful, so unintended for broadcast for the rest of the world to understand that it cannot be put into words – other than to allow her to explain it all herself: “Woody is the sweetest and kindest human being on the face of this earth. To love Woody is the easy part. To figure out if he is turning left or right is the challenge. I embrace it. Because I know before he does if it’s right or if its left and I am there to meet him face to face before he recognizes what happened.”
Upon my acknowledgment that there were so many others deserving of Making the List than the course I was heading … Anne was absolutely the first to pop into my mind. The loyalty and love that she clearly had for the High Priest of our faith (Buckeyes Football) is in fact what made him happy when he went home, which in turn produced the wonderful history that we all love.
Anne Gross Hayes is just as deserving as any other Buckeye for her part in our wonderful sporting lore.
The post Making The List: Anne Gross Hayes appeared first on The Buckeye Battle Cry: Ohio State News and Commentary.
Continue reading...