Show FIELDING HURRY UP YOST of michigan was 70 years old a month ago ile he came along when football was young and at 70 he is still as rugged as his west virginia 91 oaks aks or his michigan hemlocks by a rule of the western conference 70 is the retiring age which means that one of the ablest and most colorful characters from the american sporting scene has come to the end of a football road that goes back to west I 1 virginia and the autumn of 1895 only lonnie stagg and pop warner can look back a grantland rice deeper P distance to a faraway past faraway and long ago the game has given us only one stagg 0 only one warner only one and only one yost they painted the scene with a flaming flaring smear of vivid color that no one else barring only the famous knute rockne has ever approached pro ached it was in 1895 that a big shaggy haired gawky backwoods teacher from fairview saw and played in his first football game hurry up yost had arrived yost was so keen about football from the start that no one university could offer him enough competition so in 1895 lie he played with west virginia lafayette and the allegheny athletic club brink thorne of yale was one of the lafayette coaches when yost was starring on a team that beat one of pennsylvanian Pennsyl star elevens by 6 to 4 yost wanted to play football all day long brink once told me and talk it all night he might have added covering the map hap on his march across the count rys map yost coached teams at ohio wesleyan nebraska kansas and stanford again one university enough while at stanford he also coached four other teams successfully the stanford freshmen san jose teachers lowell high school of san francisco and the california FIELDING YOST ukiah team five teams what you might call putting in a full season most of his teams had victorious sweeps but it was not until 1901 when his famous battle cry of hurry up hurry up arrived at michigan that yost came to instant fame 1 I still believe those michigan teams from 1901 through 1905 were the greatest five consecutive football teams any university ever moved into destructive action playing through heavy schedules they won 55 games tied one a and nd lost one while scoring around points yost coached michigan for 25 years before he took over the directorship of athletes in those 25 years his teams won games and lost but 10 they won or tied for the big ten title eight times and during 11 of those 25 years the maize and blue was not in the conference what an all time michigan team yost could have put into the field from rom the men he coached he turned out 16 all american nominations through 1926 in addition to all this yost directed the construction of six athletic buildings including the michigan stadium that seats some people A 4 F football life for or over 40 years football has been yosts costs life he has eaten it dreamed it talked it and lived it the last time I 1 saw hi him in we had lunch together at one at three the next morning he was still showing me what made a good punter and how to block at the finish I 1 was a battered and a beaten wreck you have to be in ideal condition to talk with yost he hammers your chest with the powerful stubby fingers of both hands |