Just after the 1909 football season, ‘The New York Times’ broke news of a scandal in Ann Arbor: Wolverine James Joy Miller, Fielding Yost’s star halfback and captain-elect, had neglected to enroll at Michigan. ‘The whole university is sick about the business,’ the paper reported.

When Fielding Yost infamously benched Michigan’s best player during one football game in 1934, he set in motion a one-dimensional narrative about the athlete. Now a digital exhibit at the Bentley explores Willis Ward’s expansive and complicated legacy.

The U-M community is invited to provide feedback on the recommendation by the President’s Advisory Committee on University History to remove Fielding H. Yost’s name from Yost Ice Arena.

In 1925 two lonely rebels said no to the formidable Fielding Yost in a contest of ideas that still echoes today.