Woody Hayes. Photo Credit: ART RODGERS / LOS ANGELES TIMES
Times photographer Art Rogers shows Pasadena police officer Jay D’Angelo how he was holding his camera when shoved by Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes before Rose Bowl football game. Rogers filed a complaint with the Pasadena Police Dept. (Credit: Steve Fontanini/Los Angeles Times).
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They say the camera never blinks.
Well, it might have flinched, just a bit on January 1, 1973 during the Rose Bowl, when Ohio State Buckeyes celebrated coach Woody Hayes preparing for battle against USC, shoved L.A. Times photographer Art Rogers’ camera into his face. It was reportedly no minor shove, since Rogers required medical treatment.
According to Rogers, he was one of a half dozen persons photographing the coach huddling with his team during warmup drills, just minutes before the start of the game. As the huddle broke, Rogers positioned himself low, using a long lens before Hayes charged out and jammed the camera into his forehead.
“That ought to take care of you, you son of a bitch,” Hayes growled.
Hayes told an AP reporter: ``This photographer kept pushing in and trying to get a picture of me at close range…I turned my back on him and he went around on the other side and stuck the camera in my face again.
“This time I pushed the camera away and made some remark, but I did not hit him. I just made a shoving motion to get the camera out of my face.”
During a post-game interview, when asked to give his version of events, Hayes exploded into a tirade: “Oh, for Jesus Christ’s sake, forget it,” he snapped and threw the microphone he was holding onto the floor. “That’s the end of this interview. Those are really big stories.” Before storming past reporters, the OSU coach, howled: “He (Rogers) wasn’t hurt.”
A misdemeanor battery charge filed against Hayes with the Pasadena Police Department was subsequently dropped by Rogers because he reportedly “had received an ‘appropriate communication’ from Hayes.”
The L.A. Times provides a detailed report of the whole twisted affair of ``Shovegate’’ in their photography blog, Framework. http://is.gd/vVD08W
But the biggest blow suffered during the day, as it turned out, wasn’t the L.A. Times photographer, but the Ohio State Buckeyes who were trounced by the Trojans, especially by USC running back Sam "Bam" Cunningham (who scored four touchdowns), 42-17 in Pasadena.
Bill Lucey
[email protected]
January 1, 2014
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