Charlie Bauman

On December 28, 1978 in the Gator Bowl, Charlie Bauman, a second-team Clemson noseguard, intercepted a pass thrown by Ohio State freshman quarterback Art Schlichter with two minutes left in the game. Bauman was knocked out of bounds into the Ohio State sidelines where Ohio State head coach Woody Hayes threw a punch at Bauman before being restrained by his players. Unsportsman-like penalties against the Buckeyes left the Tigers with excellent field position, and Clemson quarterback Steve Fuller was able to run out the clock for a 17-15 Tiger victory. Hayes was fired as head coach at 7:45 a.m. the next morning, and never coached again. He also never apologized to Bauman. Hayes died March 12,1987. The road outside the Horseshoe named for him.

A true student of military history, Hayes continued to serve on the faculty at the Ohio State University after the end of his coaching career.

On December 29, 1978, Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes punched Clemson player Charlie Bauman in the throat after Bauman intercepted a pass with 2 minutes left in the Gator Bowl. The next day, Ohio State fired Hayes, ending his 30-year tenure as head coach

Woody Hayes

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Controversies

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Comments on the My Lai Massacre

Speaking at a football banquet in 1969, Hayes spoke about the recently revealed My Lai Massacre. He stated that the Vietnamese men in My Lai deserved to die, "and I wouldn't be so sure those women were innocent. The children are obviously innocent – if they are less than five."

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1978 Gator Bowl incident and dismissal

On December 29, 1978, the Buckeyes played in the Gator Bowl against Clemson. Late in the fourth quarter, Clemson was leading Ohio State 17–15. Freshman quarterback Art Schlichter managed to get Ohio State into field goal range. On third and 5 at the Clemson 24-yard line with 2:30 left and the clock running, Hayes called a pass rather than a run, because Schlichter was having a great game up to that point. Schlichter's next pass was intercepted by Clemson nose guard Charlie Bauman, who returned it toward the Ohio State sideline, where he was run out of bounds. After Bauman stood up facing the OSU sideline Hayes punched him in the throat, triggering a bench-clearing brawl. Hayes stormed onto the field and was abusive towards the referee. When one of Hayes' own players, offensive lineman Ken Fritz, tried to intervene, Hayes turned on him and had to be restrained by defensive coordinator George Hill. The Buckeyes were assessed two 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalties for Hayes' attack on Bauman and his abuse towards the referee. Bauman was not injured by Hayes' punch and shrugged the incident off. Even though the game was being telecast by ABC, neither announcer Keith Jackson nor co-announcer Ara Parseghian saw or commented about the punch.

After the game, Ohio State Athletic Director Hugh Hindman, who had played for Hayes at Miami University and had been an assistant under him for seven years, privately confronted Hayes in the Buckeye locker room. He said that he intended to tell school president Harold Enarson about what happened, and strongly implied that Hayes had coached his last game at Ohio State. After a heated exchange, Hindman said that he then offered Hayes a chance to resign, but Hayes refused, saying, "That would make it too easy for you. You had better go ahead and fire me." Hindman then met with Enarson at a country club near Jacksonville, and the two agreed that Hayes had to go.

The next morning, Hindman told Hayes that he had been fired. A press conference was held at the hotel where the team had been staying. The team returned to Columbus around noon, and Hayes left the airport in a police car. Regarding Hayes' dismissal, Enarson said that "there isn't a university or athletic conference in this country that would permit a coach to physically assault a college athlete." After the incident, Hayes reflected on his career by saying, "Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach." About two months after the incident, Hayes called Bauman in his dorm room, but did not apologize for his previous attack on him. Earle Bruce succeeded Hayes as Ohio State's head coach.

Many years later, Leonard Downie, Jr., former executive editor of The Washington Post and student journalist at Ohio State, said he regretted not reporting an incident in the 1960s where Hayes instructed a player to take off his helmet and then hit him in the head.

According to the 1994 HBO documentary American Coaches: Men of Vision and Victory, Hindman had placed Hayes on notice at the beginning of the 1978 season, not just for the swing at the ABC cameraman during the 1977 Michigan game, but also for hitting a player during practice. In his 1989 autobiography, Michigan's Bo Schembechler wrote that he believed Hayes, who was diabetic and may have had a high blood sugar level, didn't believe he struck Bauman. Schembechler also pointed out that Hayes had maintained that all he was trying to do was grab the ball away.

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