Charles A. Baird - Yost's "point-a-minute" Teams - Hiring of Fielding Yost

Hiring of Fielding Yost

In January 1901, Langdon Lea returne to his alma mater, Princeton, as its first "official" football coach. Baird was left without a football coach for the second time in eight months. At the end of the 1900 football season, Stanford University passed a rule requiring all coaches to be alumni. The decision left Stanford's football coach, Fielding H. Yost, who was not an alumnus, without a job. Yost wrote to the University of Illinois in December 1900 seeking a job. Illinois did not have an opening, but the school's athletic director passed along Yost's letter to Baird at Michigan. Baird asked Yost to come to Ann Arbor to interview for the football coaching job. Before leaving for Ann Arbor, Yost sent Baird a box of clippings and scrapbooks. Baird met Yost at the Ann Arbor train station, where Yost is reported to have told Baird, "There are three things that make a winning football team, spirit, manpower and coaching. If your boys love Meeshegan, they've got the spirit, you see. If they turnout, that takes care of the manpower. I'll take care of the coaching." Baird offered Yost the job at a salary of $2,300 (the same as a full professor) for only three months work. Baird reportedly told Yost, "Well, you've got a real job ahead of you. You've got to beat Chicago."