Mrs. Yost: 'Just A Lovely Lady'

During a Yost Award Event
Mrs. Eunice Yost, second from left, regularly attended annual ceremonies in which an outstanding Michigan athlete was presented the Yost Award given in memory of her late husband. In this picture, taken several years ago at an award gathering, she is shown with Mrs. Marjory L. Rea, widow of Walter "Bud" Rea, the U-M's only dean of men; Robert Brown, a member of the Board of Regents from Kalamazoo, whose term ended last year, and Bennie Oosterbaan. Brown was captain of Michigan's 1925 team which Yost coached and on which Oosterbaan earned All-America honors.

An era of "point-a-minute" football and championship teams will be recalled Saturday afternoon when Michigan alumni from three generations gather here for the funeral of the widow of Fielding H. Yost.
The legendary head coach had been directing Michigan football for five years when he married Eunice Josephine Fite in Nashville, Tenn., in 1906. She was 94 when she died Thursday morning at the Huron View Lodge Nursing Home.
"She was a gracious southern belle," Wally Weber, former Michigan fullback, coach, recruiter and general emissary, says of Mrs. Yost. "Just a lovely lady . . . a gal whose presence on the road trips in the old days kept us all civilized."
Weber, whose roots grow deep in Michigan football tradition, recalls Mrs. Yost riding on the trains which took the Yost squads to distant games.
"With her around we of course had to wear clean shirts and ties and had to act like we weren' t savages," Weber says. "She was a wonderful woman."
While Mrs. Yost didn't pretend to be a football expert, she knew the game and gave Coach Yost the support he needed in the tough seasons. U-M Sports Information Director Will Perry recalls the anecdote involving Mrs. Yost when she and Fielding were attending the Michigan-Illinois game in 1924. Yost had retired the year before from coaching and was agonizing while watching Illinois' "Galloping Ghost", Red Grange, run wild against the Wolverines.
After Grange had run for his fourth touchdown Mrs. Yost tugged at her husband's coat and said, "Fielding, can't you do something about this?"
Yost did. He immediately carne out of retirement, taking over his old coaching duties and leading Michigan to a 21-0 victory over Wisconsin the next Saturday.
During the more than four decades in which Fielding Yost served Michigan as head coach and then athletic director the Yost home on Ann Arbor's east side was the center for the entertainment of governors, senators and the greats of the football world.
"She was always cordial, always made you feel welcome," one Michigan alumnus recalls.
While football coaching was always serious business with Yost, Mrs. Yost helped put the job in perspective, one old friend recalls. Bennie Oosterbaan, retired head coach at U-M and considered Yost's finest football player, remained a lifelong friend of the Yost family.
Fritz Crisler had been head coach and athletic director at Michigan for eight years when Yost died in 1946.
Mrs. Yost maintained the family home at 616 Stratford Dr., remaining active in organizations composed of the wives of Michigan coaches. She was a determined and talented gardener and kept up her membership in the National Farm and Garden Association.
"I'm an agarian at heart," she once joked.
Football was always a part of the Fites from Nashville. Mrs. Yost's sister married Dan McGugin, who for years was an outstanding head coach and recruiter at Vanderbilt University.
Funeral services will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Muehlig Funeral Chapel with Dr. Donald B. Strobe officiating. Burial will be in Forest Hill Cemetery where Coach Yost is buried.