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By Bob Greene / WALL STREET JOURNAL / Jan. 10, 2021
Imagine this, football fans: Undefeated Ohio State battles its way to the biggest postseason game of the year. But before the revved-up athletes can go to the airport the university decides: You know, all things considered, we think it would be better if we just didn’t play.It once happened. And as this year’s Buckeyes prepare to play Alabama for the national championship Monday night, what transpired at the end of the 1961 season remains one of the most bizarre episodes in college football history.Ohio State, after tying its opener against Texas Christian, had run the table to finish 8-0-1. In the final game of the regular season, it trounced rival Michigan, 50-20.
This was before the playoff system was instituted, so the traditional bowl games were how teams made their case to be voted national champions. Ohio State was invited to play in the most prestigious of those games: the Rose Bowl.As the team prepared for the trip to Pasadena, Calif., to face UCLA, Ohio State’s Faculty Council met to take the required formal vote to accept the Rose Bowl invitation. The faculty voted no.Just like that. By a tally of 28-25, the council decreed that the football team should not be allowed to play in the Rose Bowl.By all accounts, there were no transgressions by the team or its coaches that spurred the vote.
The Faculty Council simply felt that students were paying too much attention to football and not enough to studying. The council believed that saying no to the Rose Bowl would send a signal about the university’s priorities.According to contemporaneous reports from the Associated Press, the Faculty Council was upset that Ohio State had gained a reputation as a “football school.” Members thought that because the Buckeyes had already defeated UCLA in the regular season, there was no point in a rematch. They didn’t want students and faculty to be distracted from their academic work: “the football tail wagging the college dog.” And they were concerned that “the Rose Bowl is a commercial enterprise.”So the trip was off.
There was an uproar in Columbus; students burned effigies of faculty members, broke windows, marched downtown to the State Capitol. All to no avail. As things spun out of control, who brought calm? None other than Ohio State’s head coach, Woody Hayes. “I would not want football to drive a line of cleavage in our university,” he said. “Football is not worth that.” Although he disagreed with the faculty’s vote, he said, “they should not be intimidated.” He said he always taught his players “to learn to accept defeat under pressure, and that may help us now.”
Thus the undefeated Buckeyes were ordered to stay home, purportedly so they could study without having to worry about football. It was the only time the team turned down a bowl game. And today there is an endowed faculty chair named in honor of Woody Hayes.
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