Given his health scare, resignation, unresignation and now leave of absence, we’ll be hearing a lot in the next few days, weeks and months about Urban Meyer reducing his workload before he comes back to coach the Florida Gators.
Hah!
That’s like asking a NASCAR driver to stay in second gear, or a sprinter to jog 100 meters.
His wife Shelley says she’s not sure Urban can do it. But if so, how would that work?
For starters, maybe he could just be the head coach of football four months a year. That would mean he’d find somebody else to help coach the special teams. Somebody else to be the recruiting closer, academic counselor and father-confessor/friend of his players. Maybe he could give up coaching the fans on what colors to wear on special game days or serving as pitchman for president Bernie Machen’s academic fundraisers.
And, oh yes, delegate the job of Gator football CEO.
I just don’t see that happening, but maybe he can start by just not coming to the office for a while and staying away from spring practice.
In addition to all this, Meyer has to keep the wolves and the hyenas away from the door, or, as Urban likes to call it, “The Monster.” The monster he helped create and must feed almost daily.
“Winning,” said Hiram deFries, Urban’s longtime trusted aide and a consultant on his staff, “prevents anarchy.” So far Urban has beaten back the dissidents with his record of 56-10 the past four seasons, but even the two national championships, two SEC titles and 22-game winning streak didn’t buy him gravitas for very long.
Will the fans stand for less than 100 percent of Urban?
Sometimes those predators come calling for your soul when you fail to meet or exceed their expectations for University of Florida football. They nipped Urban a pretty good one the week before the SEC title game when he had to suspend star defensive lineman Carlos Dunlap and then had to experience his team’s sudden collapse in the loss to Alabama. That followed by his own collapse at home several days later when he had to be rushed to the hospital with a numb left arm and chest pains. It not only frightened Urban and his family, but his associates and boss as well.
One of his assistant coaches became concerned in recent days when Urban came down with an attack on a recruiting trip. And still another said Meyer seemed to have a “vacant” look in his eyes.
“The alarm went off when I got a phone call after the SEC Championship Game,” said Director of Athletics Jeremy Foley, “saying he was on the way to the hospital. Wow! I know how intense he is, but I didn’t think it ever get to that point – I’ll be honest with you.”
Everything is personal and intense with Urban. Whether losing a football game or losing a player, he thinks it’s his fault. “Something I’ve got to work on,” he says.
The chest pains which started four years ago have gotten worse. Meyer and Foley declined to elaborate on the physical problem, but it is known that the Florida coach has undergone numerous tests and dropped more than 20 pounds in recent weeks. He also still has a benign arachnoid cyst on his brain which was exacerbated as an assistant coach when he became too emotional, causing him to pass out on the sideline. He opted not to have surgery and the cyst is not life-threatening – nor is it related to his current problem.
So it’s hard to say how much of Urban’s problem is caused by lifestyle and how much is caused by physical ailment. He takes on the personal problems of his players and demands that his position coaches baby-sit them. He has been known to threaten to fire assistants if they turn off their cell phones.
And he never takes a day off as coach. He opens his home to the team and it is not unusual for a member of his family to arrive at their house and find a couple of players swimming in the pool.
Basically, Urban is never off the clock, although he did take a mission trip to the Dominican Republic with his family last summer. His only retreat is his lakeside home in North Central Florida, but there are far too few visits there to drink in the beauty of the cypress trees and take short hops in the boat with his young son Nate.
Now that Meyer is going on an extended leave of absence with a length to be determined, he’ll have to shut it down. Can he? Can a workaholic live a day away from the office?
“He won’t be allowed to be there,” said Foley.
The Florida AD says he and Meyer will talk about delegating some of his responsibilities, but there are some things he won’t give up. “There’s no way he’s going to let me coach special teams,” Foley said light-heartedly.
And yet there is a strong belief among those who know him best that Meyer will be back on the sideline by this fall – maybe even by opening day. And most likely by Oct. 2 when the Gators travel to Tuscaloosa for a rematch against Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide.
In the meantime, how does Urban reinvent himself? He’s going to ask others for suggestions – among them fellow coaches like Steve Spurrier. The South Carolina coach said Sunday that he appreciates the pressures that come with the job he spent 12 years doing and feels Urban needs to find a release.
“You just have to get away from it,” said Spurrier, who used golf as an offseason distraction. “We need Urban. He is good for our game.”
It turns out that Spurrier, sometimes criticized for his lack of passion for recruiting, might have had the right formula for his own personal sanity and health: Let somebody else do some of the heavy lifting.
Urban is a man without a hobby. He doesn’t read many books or attend many movies. So will he take advice from Spurrier? Meyer said at the end of his press conference that he might telephone the South Carolina coach, who he said was “my friend,” and get some advice on how to relax away from the game.
Just how far he can “get away from it” remains to be seen, but clearly not so far that he can’t keep an eye on the players and coaches that he has come to appreciate and treasure. He has a weakness for good players who are committed to the cause and assistant coaches with a platinum work ethic. And this team has stolen his heart. Once he saw them on the field Sunday and realized the kind of program he had built, he just couldn’t bail on them.
This much he knows for sure: He hopes to never wear anything but Orange and Blue, saying he couldn’t “just throw some colors on my shirt” and go coach somewhere else. If there was anybody in the Gator Nation left still miffed that Urban once called Notre Dame his “dream job,” that sin was forever forgiven with the loyalty pledge that Meyer wants to die a Gator someday when he finally gets planted in the ground.
Some of the Gator fans said they gasped when he said that and openly admitted that he had touched them in a way that he never did before.
Some wept.
It was that Orange and Blue blood in his veins that caused him to say he never wants to coach anywhere else. And when he turned to walk away from the program, the magic of “The Swamp” drew him back.
Meyer and strength and conditioning coach Mickey Marotti were observing practice, looking around at “that great stadium,” Ben Hill Griffin, noting the national championship, SEC championships and Heisman Trophy designations, when it occurred to Urban that he was about to give away the child that he had raised. He later admitted he couldn’t bear the thought. So he took the mulligan he had been offered by Jeremy Foley and Florida president Dr. Bernard Machen.
All of a sudden, following the Jan. 1 Allstate Sugar Bowl game against Cincinnati, Urban Meyer goes from The Man Who Would Coach Everything to the guy who coaches nothing. At least for the moment. Knowing his penchant for U-Turns, however, that might not be a lengthy leave of absence. But there are guardians now who will assist in Urban’s fight against his football addiction.
Meyer often calls himself a “father of three,” but he’s really a “father of 105,” because that’s how many players are on his roster.
“He’s our dad,” said Tim Tebow.
Maybe Urban Meyer has become the father of Florida football. And, if so, in that sense, he will never be able to quit.