As you read this remarkable story (emphasis on the word “story”), ask yourself one thing – if it were you, would you have been able to keep this a secret from the entire world until you were so moved by a Dennis Dodd post that you had to share?
… When I landed there was a car waiting for me. The door opens and it’s Bo Schembechler. The pilots of the Navy Jet get out of the plane and have him sign autographs. I am in shock. We get back to the Hayes house on Cardiff Rd. My parents aren’t back from Florida yet and Mrs. Hayes wanted me to stop by. I am sitting at the kitchen table with Bo, Richard Nixon, and Mrs. Hayes. I am in uniform and Mrs. Hayes says, “Billy would you would like a glass of milk.” Bo looks at me, then at President Nixon and says to Mrs. Hayes, “Ann, I think Billy needs something stronger than a glass of milk.” I thought Richard Nixon was going to have a heart attack right there on the spot.
Riiight. That’s what I thought.
I have no idea whether Dodd constructed the story out of whole cloth himself. (It’s not like he hasn’t done questionable things before.) However, even if he’s just passing this along as a viable report from a third-party source that he hasn’t vetted, that’s bad enough.
But here’s the cherry on top of the sundae:
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spiderbaby64
Reputation: 79
Level: Pro
Since: Jan 5, 2008Mailbag 8/14
According to Bill’s letter – “I know you’re a reporter but I would appreciate if you kept it to yourself.”
So why did you publish this, Mr. Dodd?Dennis Dodd
Reputation: 97
Level: Superstar
Since: Feb 8, 2008Mailbag 8/14
You write to me, you’re in the public arena. Plus, it was a great story from a great man. I don’t think I violated any ethics.
dd
Well, at least he thought about it.
Get The Picture 
The fact that Dodd didn’t even have the sheer weasel cunning to edit the “please keep it to yourself” part out is indicative of an astounding level of arrogance, tone-deafness, or probably both.
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Nah… it’s part of the sales job.
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Kinda far fetched but made for a good read.
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Perhaps he waited for the right moment…when all other persons involved were dead and couldn’t say: who is this guy?
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Yep…that is the simplest answer. Which is most often the correct one.
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Rough draft of Odd Dodd’s next real-truth fictional expose from an unnamed and unmanned source because the first was so successful:
So I’m sitting in Marilyn Monroe’s closet, when JFK comes into her bedroom for the usual afternoon booty call – I had already had the morning watch, that’s back when they still had morning papers – and I hear ‘em talking,
Marilyn coos, “If we had a baby, what would we call it?”
“JFK III or IV or whatevah, Marilyn Jr., Sammy or Dean,” says the Prez but they just couldn’t decide and kept on bickering.
I broke cover bummed that Marilyn had never opened up the baby-naming dialogue with me, and as I was jumping out the bedroom window, having been trained at the Ft. Benning Vacation Bible School as an elementary school jumper to interdict the Commies, I yelled out,
“Name the bastard Pork Rind Jimmy!”
I sh!t you not that’s how he came about.
So even though Jimmy had a red-hot smoking mama in Marilyn, sometimes you don’t catch all the breaks with genetics, in other words unintelligent design flaws, and that’s why Jimmy looks like a chitlin even though he does bleach his hair blonde but don’t tell anyone I told you so.
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Woodward.
Bernstein.
Dodd.
Need I say more?
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I wish Woody Hayes could be revived just so he could pass again. Asshole.
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Again. I hate Dennis Dodd and what he’s doing to sports journalism.
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And after reading this story, I’m going to have to go ahead and call bullshit.
I MIGHT even be willing to accept that Woody Hayes’ wife, in the midst of grieving her dead husband, thought to make sure that the PAPERBOY got invited to the coach’s funeral.
And I MIGHT even be willing to stretch a bit and try to accept that the President Nixon called President Reagan, who was willing to pull out a team of Marines doing drug interdiction in Central America just so one of them could come back to the States and go to a football coach’s funeral.
But the idea that the PAPERBOY was one of the most important people in the Hayes’ family’s life, so important that he was asked to sit at the kitchen table with Mrs. Hayes, Bo Schembechler and RICHARD NIXON to have a glass of milk… well, that’s just ridiculous. The dude that sent in this story’s a liar, he’s been telling that story for years, and he wanted to get it published so people would finally believe him. But where in the world would you find a writer stupid enough to buy such a far-fetched story and publish it without vetting it… hmm….
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Not so fast my friend!
Direct from the Dick Nixon Papers on Woodrow as semi-accurately reported by the Wikipedia:
“At Hayes’ funeral on March 17, 1987, former president Richard Nixon delivered the eulogy before a crowd of 1,400 acknowledging the friendship that had begun during his second term as vice president. Having met Hayes at a reception following a Buckeye win over Iowa in 1957, Nixon recalled, “I wanted to talk about football and Woody wanted to talk about foreign policy. And you know Woody. We talked about foreign policy.” And why that paperboy was always hanging around the house so much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne_Woodrow_Hayes
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The story is true except for the milk part. Woody’s wife offered the kid a beer and Bo said, “Give the kid a scotch for crying out loud! He’s a journalist!”
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Nixon’s not a ghost. He’s a disembodied head.
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I never realized what a total dick Woody Hayes was. I knew he was crazy at the end, but didn’t realize it was like that his entire career.
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