Cedars - Dr. Brown to Step Down as President

William Brown, PhD, announced today that he will step down as president of Cedarville University at the end of this school year. Read my Cedars news story here. Included is a Storify story, which you can also view here.

OSU's Hayes born in Clifton, and that is all

CLIFTON – Woody Hayes was born in Clifton. But don’t expect to find much else about the former Ohio State University football coach’s time in the village, and don’t expect Clifton residents to claim much else, either.

“What’s known of Woody Hayes is obviously vast because of his football career at Ohio State,” said Alex Bieri, Clifton mayor. “He was a well-known coach for many reasons, and he was a, as I understand it, pretty distinct character and had some specific techniques and things he was known for that helped him make a name for himself.  But where Clifton is concerned, it’s always been, ‘Well, he was born in Clifton, and that’s it. That’s all we know.’”

According to his birth certificate, Woody, who would have turned 100 this winter, was born to Wayne and Effie Hayes on the evening of Feb. 14, 1913, on the Greene County side of Clifton, which is split between Clark and Greene counties. Woody lived in Clifton for only the first years of his life before his family left in 1916 for Newcomerstown, Ohio.

Clifton residents hesitate to claim more of Woody than they have right to given that his only relationship to the village is that he was born there.

“The fact that he was born in Clifton I think is significant in that he was a prominent historical figure for us,” Bieri said. “But beyond that, since none of his life's work really took place in Clifton or had anything to do with Clifton, then I think it is a little silly, if you will, for Clifton at this point to try to piggy back on his legacy or take credit for anything that has to do with his life's work, other than the fact that he was born here."

Former mayor Steve McFarland said Clifton is not significant to Woody but Woody is to Clifton.

“He’s the most recent person that had great impact elsewhere that was actually born in the village or had some kind of contact in the village,” McFarland said.

Paula Lazorski, a Clifton village councilwoman whose family moved to Clifton in 1962, said the relationship between the village and the 1951 to 1979 Buckeye football head coach is not significant because Woody claimed Newcomerstown, not Clifton, as his hometown.

And it is there, not Clifton, where several people have said Woody’s life is based. 

“The Woody story seems to be pretty well-grounded in Newcomerstown,” said Jerry Holt, who wrote the play “Woody,” which was performed in Clifton in 2007.

However, Brian Richards, the actor who played Woody in the Clifton performance of Holt’s play, said Woody felt connected to everywhere he spent time and that he spoke of how significant Clifton was to his parents and so then also to him. Despite this, most Clifton residents said either they do not believe Woody ever came back to visit Clifton or are unsure if he did.

According to an Associated Press article in March 1987 — the month Woody died — he did return to Clifton, or at least to Greene County. Just before Clifton Union School closed in 1962, Woody spoke at a class reunion there, even though he did not graduate from the school.

And Lazorski said her father Paul, who is a former mayor of Clifton, tried to get Woody to speak at the village’s former Memorial Day ceremony. 

“We just always thought Woody Hayes would be a good one,” Lazorski said, saying the village had representatives from Congress speak at the ceremony, which Clifton no longer holds.

Woody never came.

In a letter in 1968 responding to a request to speak at the Memorial Day ceremony, Woody said he would have loved to speak but couldn’t because he was planning to travel to Vietnam, which he had done the previous two years.

“If I had a definite date for that trip then I could definitely tell you if I could be with you, but I probably won’t know until after our spring football practice as to the exact date I can go,” Woody wrote in the letter. “For that reason I cannot accept your thoughtful invitation.”

In addition to speaking at a Clifton Union School reunion, Woody has another connection to the school. His father, Wayne Benton Hayes, served as superintendent there from 1911 to 1916. This fact along with the name of the physician on Woody’s birth certificate provide insight into what house the Hayes family lived in while in Clifton.

According to a Columbus Dispatch article from 2007, Clifton resident Chris Rainey, who now lives in Lebanon, thought his house at 45 S. Jackson St. was Woody’s. Rainey found out about the possible connection from a village councilwoman who told him that her mother had said the house on Jackson St. was where the Hayes lived.

“She claims that her mother had known the Hayes,” Rainey said.

Rainey said his house on Jackson Street is where the superintendent of the Clifton school lived for a while. Since Wayne Hayes was the superintendent when his son Woody was born, Rainey said it makes sense to assume that his former Jackson Street home is where Woody grew up. 

However, the Xenia and Greene County Directory from 1913, the year Woody was born, lists a W.B. Hayes as residing on Clay Street, not Jackson. And this is where councilwoman Lazorski has heard Woody Hayes lived. 

“I was always told it was down on Clay Street. That’s what my mom always told me,” Lazorski said.

Woody does have some connection to Jackson Street. F.C. Adams, the physician who delivered Woody, lived on Jackson, the 1913 directory said.

“That would make sense if he was actually physically born there but didn’t live there,” Lazorski said of Woody’s relationship to Jackson Street.

The 2007 Columbus Dispatch article on Rainey’s house was written the weekend of Old Clifton Days, the village’s former annual festival. The village had other Woody-related events and activities that weekend. 

Rainey headed up the dedication of North Street — also Route 343 — in honor of Woody. A red street sign reading “Hayes Way” in white letters now adorns a telephone pole on the corner of North Street and Clay Street.

“Some folks thought it was fun and folksy,” Rainey said, although he said he did not get a whole lot of feedback on the sign. Former mayor McFarland said not many residents came to the dedication.

North Street in Clifton was dedicated as Hayes Way in 2007.

“I really don’t know if they cared one way or the other,” McFarland said.

One surprise guest at the dedication and other festival activities was Woody’s niece, Mary Hayes Hoyt, now Mary Hayes Hemmer. Rainey said Hemmer helped unveil the Hayes Way sign.

“I didn’t know she was coming along,” Rainey said. The festival also included a parade with a Woody Hayes impersonator serving as grand marshal.

With 2013 being Woody’s 100th birthday, it may be a year Clifton officially recognizes Woody again with an event, such as in 2007. The village council discussed having an event for Woody on his Feb. 14 birthday, but Mayor Bieri said at this point, they probably are not going to do that. But Woody may get mentioned either at a Clifton Opera House event or at the Clifton Gorge Music and Arts Festival in late summer, Bieri said.

Both Rainey and McFarland said Clifton should do more to highlight that it is Woody’s birthplace.

“Personally, I wish there was a little more notoriety,” Rainey said.

Bieri said most of what he hears from Clifton residents on Woody’s relationship to the village is simple comments about how he was born there. He said he knows OSU fans that feel a connection to Woody.

“Woody Hayes is definitely a character kind of emblazoned in their consciousness, and for other people he’s not,” Bieri said.

For Marie Pascarella, who is renting Rainey’s former house at 45 S. Jackson Street, Woody is not.

“A lot of people come around here and talk about how this is Woody Hayes’ house,” Pascarella said. 

Her response?

“Oh.”

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