Sept. 25, 2007

Fielding Harris Yost was always a man on the move, and on a mission. In 1897, Yost met with a professor at Ohio State about coaching football, but a demonstration of a play with the help of office furniture, led the Buckeye educator to think he was crazy. As a coach in California at the turn of the century, Yost spent each day coaching four - yes, four - colleges, so there was no room to waste any second of the day. And when the University of Michigan hired Yost as its new football coach in 1901, Wolverine players were led by just two words: Hurry Up!

Born in Fairview, W. Va., Yost began playing his college ball at the University of West Virginia during the 1894-95 season. Up the coast, powerhouse Penn and its guards-back formation was dominating the competition, including nearby Lafayette College. A tackle at West Virginia, Yost was soon lured by Lafayette to make a change in schools, and since there was no transfer rule at the time, he donned a new uniform for the 1895-96 campaign. That year Yost dominated the rival Quakers and helped Lafayette to one of the nation's biggest upsets of the season.

With a law degree from Lafayette in hand, Yost graduated in 1897, but opted to pursue a career in football as a coach. A friend of Yost invited him to Columbus, Ohio to meet with a professor who was known for hiring Buckeye football coaches. Feeling he needed to demonstrate just how he successfully defended Penn's offensive attack while at Lafayette, Yost positioned the professor alongside a sofa and a few chairs and acted out the play.

The horrified professor soon turned to Yost's friend and replied, "Get this madman out of here!"

Little did that Buckeye faculty member know that Ohio State's loss would eventually turn into Michigan's gain.

Following the defensive demonstration on the OSU campus, Yost traveled north to Ohio Wesleyan, where he began his coaching career in 1897. He then left for a coaching job at the University of Nebraska in 1898 and took off a year after that for Kansas in 1899. Yost headed west to California in 1900 to take the head job at Stanford. His dedication to the game and desire to coach quickly left him with no free time.

During the 1900 season, Yost tutored the local high school football team at 10 a.m. At 2 p.m., he coached the Stanford freshman squad and then mentored the Stanford varsity team at 4 p.m. Following dinner, he coached at the nearby San Jose State Teachers College, before retiring for the night and doing it all over the next day.

Each of Yost's teams from 1897 to 1900 improved dramatically, which eventually landed him a train ticket to Ann Arbor, Mich., and an offer to become the Wolverines' new coach.

Michigan hadn't had a great deal of success since its football inception in 1879, but James Burrill Angell - U-M's third school and longest-serving president (38 years, 1871-1909) - knew a change needed to be made.

At his first day of practice, wearing his black Lafayette sweater, Yost set the tone immediately. Nothing was being done fast enough for him and in his eyes, seconds were being wasted. Keep in mind, this was the man who had just coached four teams in one season.

"Hurry up, speed it up, let's hurry now, hurry up there," he once said. "If you can't hurry, make way for someone who can!"

Thus was born his nickname "Hurry Up" Yost. For the next 25 seasons, his nickname not only stood for his football philosophy, but also for the immediate success that came to the Wolverine program.

Prior to the advent of the forward pass, football was nothing but a smash-mouth, up-the-gut running mentality. Yost, however, demanded speed and agility, and he demanded it right away. If you stood around at practice, you did not belong on the team. Yost's teachings were precise and calculated down to the second of each practice. If a player missed an assignment on the field, Yost would jump in without pads and run the play first-hand.

In 25 seasons (1901-23, 25-26) at the helm of Michigan football, Yost established an overall mark of 165-29-10 (.833), including a 42-10-2 (.778) record in conference play. He captured six national championships and 10 league titles. In addition, he led Michigan against his former team Stanford in the first Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1902. The Wolverines drilled the Cardinal, 49-0, in a game that Yost later admitted was shortened almost 10 minutes due to Stanford's exhausted squad. Michigan finished Yost's first season outscoring its opponents a perfect 550-0.

Yost's six national championships are more than half of the 11 titles the Wolverines have claimed in 128 seasons. No time period during Yost's tenure was more significant than his first four years. The school he affectionately called "Meeshegan" won four-straight national championships from 1901-04, racking up an absurd number of points on the scoreboard. The dominance ultimately led to "Hurry Up" Yost's Point-a-Minute teams.

One of Yost's most significant contributions to Michigan and the game in general was his usage of the spiral when the forward pass was implemented in 1906. While other teams were simply trying to "perfect" the two-handed end-over-end basket push, Yost found that by throwing the ball in a spiral, it could be delivered to the intended target faster with more accuracy and at much greater length.

Michigan's new passing game dominated teams across the country over the next decade. The Wolverines became frequent visitors to schools outside of the Midwest, since due to a scheduling squabble, the team did not compete in the conference from 1907-16.

During World War I, Yost's teams were thin and not as dominant, as the Wolverines were just a mediocre 8-6 during the 1919 and 1920 seasons. Michigan soon returned to form under Yost and the program lost just one of 19 games from 1921-23. In 1925, the Wolverines dominated the opposition with the exception of losing its lone game to Northwestern, 3-2. In its seven other wins, U-M outscored its opponents by a mind-blowing 225-0 margin. The 1925 team was led by Harry Hawkins at guard and the best passing combination the nation had seen since the advent of the forward pass 20 years prior. Quarterback Benny Friedman and standout receiver Bennie Oosterbaan constantly but the opposition's defense to shame.

Yost found that success in the early 1920s while also serving as a top administrator at the University. In 1921, Yost was hired as the school's first full-time Director of Athletics. In that role, Yost was one of the country's first athletic administrators to serve all student-athletes in all sports sponsored at the school. Not known for sitting around, or sitting still for that matter, Yost quickly demanded the Board of Regents approve $255,000 for the construction of a Field House that would provide an indoor venue for all of Michigan's 19 sports. Despite criticism by the University over the cost, the Fielding H. Yost Field House was opened on Nov. 10, 1923. The cost of the one-of-a-kind facility was more than double than what Yost had initially asked for. Yost designed the blueprint for what several universities across the country soon followed. In 1973, the venue was renovated for the first time and converted into an ice hockey arena. The renamed Yost Ice Arena now serves the Michigan ice hockey team and has been home to close to 400 Wolverine victories.

Throughout his tenure, Yost also saw the construction of the famed golf course and Intramural Building on campus and directed a significant expansion of Michigan Stadium. Legend has it that when workers were renovating Michigan Stadium, they dug into several natural springs. When they asked Yost what to do with all the water, the Michigan administrator said, "Keep it! We'll use it for the golf course!" At that time, there was no golf course across the street, but in true Yost fashion, the workers were told to "hurry up" on the football stadium so they could start building the golf course.

Yost retired from coaching in 1929 and ended his reign as Director of Athletics in 1941. The Michigan leader died in 1946 at age 75 in Ann Arbor, and was among the inaugural class of inductees to the College Football Hall of Fame in 1951.

Sportswriter Grantland Rice once said of Yost: "No other man has ever given as much heart, soul, brains and tongue to the game he loved--football."

But perhaps he is most remembered for the time he gave to the University of Michigan and his dedication toward making the University a leader in college athletics. He revived the football program, restored the integrity to the school, redesigned the athletic campus, and reinvented how college athletics operates.

And never once did he slow down doing it.

Adapted from The Big Ten, by Kenneth L. (Tug) Wilson and Jerry Brondfield