Sideline Interactions

As many of you have probably heard during Notre Dame’s 35-17 thrashing of the Wolverines last Saturday, Charlie Weis was hit by one of his own players and tore his MCL and ACL.I don’t think your leg is supposed to bend that way, ouch. He did make it through the rest of the game with a wrap on his leg and crutches under his shoulders. Weis says the injury shouldn’t affect him and he plans to coach on the sidelines for the rest of the season. This isn’t the first time that a coach has been hit by a player. Last year in a loss to Wisconsin, JoePa broke his leg when a Wisconsin player came tumbling towards the sidelines and crashed his helmet into the legendary coach.Man that looks painful and I’m sure it didn’t help that Paterno was like eighty years old at the time. The injury forced Coach Paterno to leave the sidelines and coach from a press box for several weeks following the incident.

These are two incidences where players hurt coaches, but what about a coach attempting to hurt a player. The incident I am talking about is the famous Woody Hayes punch in the Gator Bowl of 1978. For our younger readers Woody Hayes was a famous coach for “The” Ohio State University who sometimes let his fiery emotions get the best of him. Hayes hated to lose and after a Clemson interception, he lost his temper. The Clemson player was tackled by the OSU sideline and Hayes greeted him with a punch in the throat.Hayes quickly apologized for his actions, but was fired the day following the incident bringing an end to the legendary coach’s career. In one of his final press conferences Hayes was quoted as saying, “Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach.” This is probably the most famous Coach-Player sideline interaction and I’m sorry it happened to such a good man.