Urban Meyer tells the biggest ‘WTF’ story about legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes

ohiostategamedayr | February 12, 2013 at 8:27 pm | 6 Comments

Ohio State Buckeyes head coach Urban Meyer answers questions during post game press conference following the game against the Wisconsin Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium. (Jeff Hanisch-USA TODAY Sports)

Urban Meyer’s first season at Ohio State was crazy, resulting in an unreal 12-0 finish. His first recruiting cycle in Columbus was equally so, as the coach and his staff absolutely cleaned up on 2013 National Signing Day.

During a Monday afternoon speech at an Ohio coaches convention, Meyer touched on several subjects. He included the standard ‘Ohio State is the greatest thing since sliced bread’-type talk, as well as a recruiting update.

Then he began to try to tell the crowd about what it was like instilling a major level of toughness in his new program. However, struggling, Meyer instead chose to tell a story about a speech Woody Hayes made following the Buckeyes’ loss to Florida in the Gator Bowl two seasons ago.

Read on, and if you’re not saying ‘WTF?!’ out loud by the end of it, well, perhaps you just didn’t get the innuendo (story courtesy of CoachingSearch.com).

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“So I guess Ohio State had lost the bowl game, so Earl Bruce brings in Woody Hayes. I had been there just a week and I’m thinking, ‘Holy, this is Coach Hayes.’ I’m sitting in the back. Coach Hayes was not healthy at the time, but stands up and starts laying into the coaching staff about toughness. That we have no toughness in the program. That’s why we lost the game. On and on and screaming, this old guy pounding the table. He says, ‘We have no toughness, and the reason is because you’re not tough. No one on this staff is tough enough, and that’s a problem.’

“He reaches down and grabs this box, slides the top and there was something in the box moving around. He reaches in and he pulls out this turtle. He reaches down, this turtle’s snapping and he says, ‘I’m going to show you toughness.’ He unzips his pants and takes out whatever he takes out. The turtle reaches up and snaps at him. You see the veins and the sweat (on Hayes). He screams at the coaches, ‘That’s toughness! That’s f’n toughness!’ He reaches down, pokes the turtle right in the eye and it falls off. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and says, ‘That’s the problem. We don’t have anybody in this room tough enough to do that right there.

“(One assistant) raises his hand and says, ‘Coach, I’d do this. Just promise not to poke me in the eye.’”

Seriously.

WTF?!