Toughness knows no bounds

No one ever questioned former Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes' toughness.

His intensity is a thing of legend that stretches far beyond Columbus, Ohio. So is the love and admiration many in Buckeye nation still have for Hayes.

That's why a joke that Ohio State coach Urban Meyer shared at a coaches convention last weekend might be one of those enduring stories about Hayes that has some degree of truth and will be added to the Hayes lore.

Meyer was in his first year as an assistant coach at Ohio State in 1986 when then-head coach Earle Bruce brought in Hayes, who had been fired after the 1978 season, to speak to the staff about toughness. Meyer said Hayes was an "old guy" and "not healthy at the time," but he laid into the coaching staff about toughness and pounded the table.

CBSSports.com blogger Tom Fornelli transcribed the rest of the story from Meyer:

"(Hayes) reaches down and grabs this box, slides the top, and there was something in the box moving around. He reaches in, and he pulls out this turtle. He reaches down, this turtle's snapping, and he says, 'I'm going to show you toughness.' He unzips his pants and takes out whatever he takes out. The turtle reaches up and snaps at him. You see the veins and the sweat (on Hayes).

"He screams at the coaches, 'That's toughness! That's f'n toughness!' He reaches down, pokes the turtle right in the eye, and it falls off. He wipes the sweat off his forehead and says, 'That's the problem. We don't have anybody in this room tough enough to do that right there.'

"(One assistant) raises his hand and says, 'Coach, I'd do this. Just promise not to poke me in the eye.' "

Apparently when Meyer took that time off to "spend with his family," he was working on his stand-up routine.

■ SHATTERED EGO - Rob Ryan famously said he wouldn't be unemployed for more than five minutes after getting fired as the Dallas Cowboys' defensive coordinator following the season. That stretched on a bit, but he has been hired to the same position with the New Orleans Saints.

He still is surprised he lost his original job.

"Oh, yeah, look, I was a little shocked," he told ESPNDallas.com. "I knew they had to do something after an 8-8 season. They choose me to be the guy, sure."

Ryan is right in a way. Plenty of people deserved to lose their jobs after that debacle.

Of course, it's tough to admit you were one of the problems, but Ryan doesn't seem to feel much responsibility for what went wrong at all.

"Better coaches than me have been fired," Ryan said. "Just not many."

Good to see his firing humbled him.

■ RELIEVED - More than the home fans were thrilled Sunday when defenseman Jonathan Ericsson scored a goal with 4.5 seconds left to lift the Detroit Red Wings past the Los Angeles Kings, 3-2.

A happy game official might have avoided embarrassment.

Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press tweeted a quote from Ericsson about his thrilling goal:

"One of the linesmen was thanking me. He said, 'Oh, thank you so much. I really had to go pee.' "

COMPILED BY ADAM HILL
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL