Hayden Fry Won a Lot of Games, Had a Lot of Fun. And Changed the Big Ten

Iowa legend dies at 90. Broke the Michigan-Ohio State stranglehold and showed rest of Big Ten how it could be done.

They called it the Ten Year War, that epic battle between Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler, two fire-breathing dragons masquerading as football coaches.

But the Michigan-Ohio State dominance actually played out for a little longer, after Hayes lost his job for shoving an opposing player in a bowl game. For 13 straight years from 1969 to 1981, when the New Year dawned, the only teams that carried the Big Ten banner in the Rose Bowl were Ohio State and Michigan. Or Michigan and Ohio State, if you prefer.

The Big Two. It was marvelous if you loved classic rivalries. And numbing if you were among the Big Ten patsies known as the Little Eight.

When the stranglehold of no-nonsense Woody and feisty Bo was finally broken on Jan. 1, 1982, it was not another gruff tough guy striding along the Big Ten sideline in Pasadena.

It was a West Texas charmer named Hayden Fry.

Bo and Woody richly deserve their legacies for presiding over one of the most beloved eras in Big Ten history—and college football history for that matter.

But let’s give Fry, who died at 90 on Tuesday, his due: He gave the rest of the Big Ten the blueprint for cracking the Ohio State-Michigan stranglehold. And he did it with a flair.

Fry’s cool-dude aviator sunglasses and homespun style have been gone so long that I’m not sure people outside of Iowa realize his legacy—or his knack for making college football fun.

``We’ll scratch where it itches,’’ Fry would say, his variation on the old ``run-to-daylight’’ phrase made popular by Vince Lombardi.

Fry also famously painted the visitors’ locker room pink in a bit of psychological warfare. I will never forget the patient but forlorn look on Dennis Green when we caught up with him inside those pink walls after Northwestern had been thrashed 61-21 by Fry's Hawkeyes in 1983.

For all of his homespun populism, though, Fry also had a regal air about him. He was generally accompanied by a menacing state trooper or two after games. And when I attended his post-game press conferences, I had the feeling I was at an Iowa version of an audience with the Pope.

Former Northwestern coach Gary Barnett used to make light of Fry’s Texas drawl by wondering where ``West Consin’’ was located.

Fry also could be very serious. I remember talking golf with him at a Big Ten outing. He volunteered that he wasn’t much of a golfer—and he didn’t want his assistants to be, either. ``Because if they’re good at golf, they aren’t spending enough time coaching.’’

Fry went to three Rose Bowls in 10 years. His 143 victories were the most in school history until his protege, Kirk Ferentz, passed him last year. Only four coaches—Hayes (153), Schembechler (143), Amos Alonzo Stagg (115) and Ferentz (97)—have won more Big Ten games than Fry (96).

Where Woody and Bo liked to rely on their superior athletes by pounding with buttoned-down offenses, Hayden loved to put the ball in the air and proudly mixed in trick plays.

He could use his gift for salesmanship to recruit, but he always backed that up with tough, thorough preparation.

And boy, did he know how to hire a staff.

His longtime offensive coordinator, Bill Snyder, engineered a turnaround for the ages at Kansas State. Barry Alvarez, who coached Fry's linebackers, created a perennial power at Wisconsin.

Bob Stoops, who played and coached for Fry, won a national championship at Oklahoma. Stoops’ brothers, Mike, who coached at Arizona, and Mark, who has revived Kentucky, also played and coached under Fry. His ability to lure three sons of a Youngstown, Ohio, high school coaching legend to Iowa says a lot about Fry’s eye and his charisma.

But there is no greater branch on the Fry coaching tree than Ferentz, the offensive-line expert who succeeded his mentor and eventually passed him as the all-time winningest coach in Hawkeye history.

Since 1979, Iowa has had only two coaches. When Fry retired after 20 years, Ferentz took over in 1999. That’s two coaches in 40 years, a scenario for stability that’s unlikely to be approached anywhere ever again. In college football or any other sport.

For all that he did at Iowa, though, Fry said his proudest coaching achievement was integrating the Southwest Conference by bringing in wide receiver Jerry LeVias to SMU in 1965.

That’s right. For all that he accomplished at Iowa, Fry came to Iowa City after an 11-year run at SMU and six years at North Texas State.

Fry even gets credit in some corners for being the inspiration for Coach, a television show that starred Craig T. Nelson.

In other words, the bullet points on Fry’s legacy are many.

But the one I will always consider prominently is the way he brought about the transition from the dominant but stodgy Ohio State-Michigan headlock to a breath-of-fresh-air Big Ten where many teams could win, especially when they opened up their offenses.