Woody's carpet

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(Image: Ohio Stadium turf souvenir seekers, 1971) On June 14, 1971, Woody Hayes personally greeted souvenir-seekers at the Stadium, while behind him Ohio Stadium’s natural sod was cut into 12,000 individual rolls. In exchange for a donation to the new turf fund, about 5,000 fans left with a piece of bona fide stadium grass, lugging it home in their arms or sliding it into the backs of station wagons, to be sown into lawns across the country. The Columbus Dispatch wrote, tongue-in-cheek, of the grass diaspora, “…though the natural sod had nostalgic value, it bows in the march of progress.” At spring commencement on June 9, 1972, 4,500 graduates and 20,000 guests sat in the Stadium’s stands, so that thousands of metal chairs would not puncture what was already known as Woody’s Carpet.