Michigan's Fielding Yost has deep connections with Ohio Northern, spanning at least 40 years (1889-1929)

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Michigan's legendary Hall of Fame football coach Fielding "Hurry Up" Yost has deep connections with Ohio Northern University, dating from 1889 to his death in 1946.

Yost was a student at Ohio Normal University (one of the largest universities in the nation at the time) from the fall of 1889 to 1891, where he learned the game of football while playing pick-up games on campus.

He was also a first baseman for the ONU baseball team and is believed to have played in the first intercollegiate contest in school history when the baseball team traveled to Findlay College and won 21-6 in June of 1891.

Yost was also in attendance at the first basketball game on campus in school history in 1904, when he stopped in Ada to see his former player and the founder of ONU Athletics Dr. Thomas J Smull and stayed to watch the game later that night.

Yost was a frequent guest of Dr. Small at ONU over the next four decades and was one of the keynote speakers during the dedication of Taft Gymnasium (now Taft Memorial Building) on May 25, 1929.

ONU played Yost's Michigan football squads in 1903, 1904 and 1905, getting outscored by the Wolverines 136-0.