Woody Hayes and Preaching

I remember the inimitable Woody Hayes. Back in the middle sixties, the Ohio State coaches taught courses. They probably still have to do that. Majors and minors in physical education took a pretty heavy schedule of sports training. This included intense participation and testing on the specific skills as well as testing on the knowledge base for each sport. We took tennis, canoeing, track and field, wrestling, fencing, swimming, gymnastics, basketball, volleyball, baseball, handball, racquetball, squash, golf, football ,and a raft of other courses suitable for teaching physical education at all levels of public education. Some of us worked at it pretty hard and were in better physical condition than we had ever been before or since. At that time, OSU had about the best physical education programs in America. Perhaps there is a bit of bias in this last statement.

We had classroom work and suited-up for football and drills as part of Mr. Hayes' program. I also recall having to diagram plays for a notebook that constituted a good part of our final grade. The guys on OSUs football team didn't have much trouble with that requirement. Some of the rest of us simply endured it.

Woody Hayes and his coaching staff handled the different parts of the course, but I remember best my first meeting with the great coach and his manner of instruction. Bull neck, compact body, a way of lowering his chin just a bit and looking like he was about to put a spear block on you, that was my first impression of the coach. He didn't speak in frilly italics. It was boldfaced, fourteen point font all the way. Underline that. Its not that he raised his voice and bellowed, either. None of that; just a carved in brass with a heavy stylus emphasis on things dictated atop Mt. Parnassus. We never heard the first word of equivocation in Woody's voice. He didn't fumble for words like an inexperienced freshman halfback lilyfingering the ball as he ran into the line of scrimmage. He never dropped the ball once he began his lectures. Miss a word or line for your notes and you just had to figure your grade was going to drop a letter. That was Woody Hayes!

The man spoke from an authority based on long gruelling football experience. Back to that spear block. As an offensive lineman, we learned you set your bull neck--a football player has a bull neck--back into your thickset shoulders, raise your elbows like a cowcatcher and you spear the defense right in the numbers. You stand him up. Keep your feet under you and moving; do the quarter eagle. Thats why you've gotta have a bull neck. Woody said he once saw a man tackled in the end zone. He saw his head twist all the way around. Woody made it graphic to make it stick in our heads. You see all this has stuck in mine for almost forty years. He spoke with authority. He repeated himself to make us know it wasn't just important. It was the essence of football, distilled, compressed and injected into our neurons. He didn't instruct or test on opinions and, though I only met the man once after the course, I'm sure he didn't think our poorly informed opinions about football or life amounted to diddlysquat.

He surely knew football. Life? Surely not all he needed to know. Otherwise he would not have made that singular mistake which finished his coaching career. One might say Woody "lost it" when he struck a player on the field. Well, we all make mistakes and pay the consequences.

Woody Hayes preached what he knew. Let me say again, he did it with authority. That makes the transition to what this article is all really about. Football games, heroes, coaches and fans come and go, but the Word of God lasts forever. For those who need that engraved in stone: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but God's Word will never pass away." Bold-faced type, fourteen point font, engraved in brass, and heavily underlined, not one word merely an opinion. The Woody Hayes style of preaching (with love added) is what is needed in America's pulpits today. No more fumbling for the ball, dropping it beneath a pile of enemy bodies, or crawfishing back way behind the line of scrimmage to be pounced upon by a pile of milksops. The Lord spoke with authority. His apostles spoke the same because they received it pure and sincere from the mouth of God. Such preaching will never grow old and lives will certainly change under its influence.

My homely analogy of football at Ohio State was all flesh, but we have something more enduring in the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. Jesus Christ yesterday, today, tomorrow and forever. Genesis to Revelation unequivocally, completely, passionately preached is still what the world needs now. Preachers need to stop trying to out-psyche the enemy and the world and get on with what they are commissioned to do. Build with the right tools! Not little social programs, not card houses, but the Gospel which is the power unto salvation for those who will believe. Same for the sustaining power of God's Word for the redeemed. One cannot exhaust the scriptures. They are living and breathing. Though we've heard much about the spiritual gingerbread needed to build a sweet and loving fellowship, and we've heard about all the other nice books we need in our arsenal, not so!

Ministers, when you think the Word is exhausted, or its beginning to sound boring in your own ears, then move on.There are fleshly occupations that bring creature comforts to people. Try selling food or clothing or selling insurance. But if you are going to stay and minister to needy people, give them what they need. The disciples were asked if they would also leave the Savior. They responded, "Where can we go? You have the words of eternal life." Woody did not have the unction or knowledge to preach such truths, but you have. Remember! Head up, feet moving, tight grip on the ball, out of my way world, and straight to the end zone! The Lord will block downfield.