Purple Woody Hayes

In December of 1978, Ohio State and Clemson met in the Gator Bowl. I went to watch the game with friends at the house of one of my colleagues at WEBN-FM in Cincinnati. The Buckeyes were coached by the irascible 65-year-old Woody Hayes. A Clemson player intercepted an OSU pass and went out of bounds near Hayes. The coach, who had punched an ABC cameraman the season before and reportedly abused players in practice, took a swing at the Clemson player, hitting him in the throat. The fracas led to his firing. Our production director, Tom Sandman, and I looked at each other, wide-eyed. We had had the same idea at the same time. We ran out the door and drove to the WEBN studios in Hyde Park, where we stripped out the vocal and Tom inserted our new lyrics to a Jimi Hendrix classic. Listen here (:20)