With age comes wisdom. Allegedly.
Well now, I will frankly admit my opinion is a minority one; it's possible I'm the only person who thinks this way.
But we have different standards, different expectations, of an infant as compared with a 20-year-old as compared with a 40-year-old as compared with a 60-year-old.
If younger college football coaches of the time, such as Tom Osborne or Barry Switzer, had done what Woody Hayes did, they should've been fired.
Number one, being younger, they would've been expected to have more self-control, not losing their head in the passion of a moment. Number two, if fired, they were still young enough to go onto something else in which they'd be successful; they'd have time to redeem themselves.
Woody Hayes was on the down-side of life, a life remarkable in its composure and equilibrium, and slowly starting to deteriorate--that's what happens with ageing. He had already more than demonstrated his good clean sportsmanship and awesome leadership all those preceding decades. It's too bad he didn't continue in that manner to the end of his career, but older people fall apart.
God gave us judgement, the ability to discern differences, and since it's a gift from God, we're supposed to use it. Of course human judgement is varied and arbitrary, and hotly disputed--but having the same expectations, the same standards, for
all to me seems a bit much.