Tampa, Florida					Monday, September 06, 2010

Had a Jon, Now Got an Urban—Ohioans Both
Friday, December 3, 2004
TAMPA—So now we have an Urban joining a Jon in one more great adventure in Florida, or, in the State of Football. So now we have another young son of Ohio joining a football brother in the sunshine of West Central Florida. So now we have another football product of the Cradle of Coaching around Miami, Ohio, moving to the biggest of times in college ball—I mean, can it be bigger if you chose it over Notre Dame? “It’’ being the Florida Gators. So we now have another young man moving to a top rung football highpost, at the other end, the rung end of I-75. All that is happening now, and more, with Urban Meyer, perhaps the most-sought after of college head coaches this year, moving to the great University of Florida and its Gators that are loaded for 2005 moving just over a 120 miles north of the headquarters of Jon Gruden, the head coach of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Urban Meyer is coming from great success at the University of Utah, where the present president of the University of Florida (Bernie Machen) was but a year ago the president at Utah to be the head coach of the Gators, the place of so much success under Steve Spurrier. The hiring of Meyer, to a seven-year $14 million contract, will be just dandy with the Gator Nation, since the “coaching search” got cross-wise with Spurrier. He wanted the job. . . and he did not. The university (Machen and Athletic Director Jeremy Foley) wanted Spurrier. . . and they did not. The Gator Nation wanted Spurrier, and it did not. That Spurrier did not wind up back at Florida will be okay all around if Urban Meyer does what he thinks he can, what the fans think he will and think he must, and what Meyer’s dad, Bud, said he can do far easier, far quicker than he could at Notre Dame. The Meyer Family passed on Notre Dame and took the Gators, getting everybody off the hook except Notre Dame. Notre Dame was on the spot for firing its black head coach, Troy Willingham without due process, protestors said. Then, Notre Dame went for Meyer but lost him to the Gators, to AD Foley and President Machen, along with that spot, getting bigger all the time. Notre Dame is already under suspicion by officials for other unlikely doings, as well as the Willingham dismissal, and now, being out-recruited by Florida, and being handed that spot by the Gators. In the minds of some, it was for the firing of Ron Zook as head coach at mid-season, for not hiring, in the minds of some, the golden coach of Gator history now, Steve Spurrier, to return to Gatorland and take over the Zook recruits stabled there in the off-season. Quickly: Florida had hired Zook in haste when Spurrier quit before, AD Foley did and Zook clearly was not yet ready for such a big command. When Zook was canned at mid-season, Spurrier re-entered the picture, for he had quit the pros, the Washington Redskins. The Pros, the job of coaching pros, was not Spurrier’s bag. Florida considered him, and Spurrier considered Florida, but, hey, can he at near 60 years of age improve on six Southeastern Conference and one national titles he’d won as a younger man? And, as one former president noted, Spurrier is no longer as young as he looks, a fact overlooked by many, including me. And, he did not want to go through the “process,’’ brief as it may have been, so, well, the University of South Carolina “made me the only genuine offer I had,’’ he said recently to me, “the head job in the SEC, in the South,’’ but no membership at Augusta National Golf Club,’’ as went one rumor. But Spurrier is now a Gamecock, which seems right, will take the South Carolina to new levels and a lot of fun, but	not the successes he had at Florida, the state of so many great athletes and bigtime recruiting safari’s from all over the USA, including places like Notre Dame, and South Carolina. So, when Spurrier was clearly out of the picture, the already cranked up pursuit of Urban Meyer (of Utah 10-2, 11-0 of Bowling Green 8-3, 9-2, 10-2) cranked up even more. So did, the pursuit of him by Notre Dame, where he had been an assistant coach and seemed bound one day. He even had a clause in his contract allowing him an out if Notre Dame, and others, offered him the head job. Meyer took the Florida Gator job. He took the money, the seven years contract, the great roster of fine players already there and a heads-up on others. Meyer fled Utah and went to Gainesville, not South Bend. His dad advised it. His dad told him it would be more fun, easier to win quickly there. The SEC he knew would be great. Indeed, there was no downside to going to Florida, except the perennials, got-to-win, no experience as a head coach at such a level, and against such opposition. But, my, the size of the place at Florida—46,000 students—the high esteem of the Gators in their homestate, the 90,000-seat stadium that is sold out, and money, money, money, including all that he will earn. So it is to be Urban, born in Ashtabula and educated at the University of Cincinnati in football (defensive back) and psychology, his wife and three kids, at 40 years old, is heading for Florida and the adventures that lie ahead, including key games with Florida State, Georgia, Miami, and, uh, South Carolina, which has that new coach, too. He joins in that neighborhood Jon Gruden, 41, at the Buccaneers, just I-75, and a native of Sandusky, Ohio who was a player at Dayton, not to mention an assistant at Notre Dame for a time. Lots of coincidences here, as well as, lots of neat deals. These two young men—Gruden at 41 is the youngest head man in the NFL and where he wants to be, and, of course, they both came from the football neighborhoods once known as the Cradle of Coaching. Cradled there were Paul Brown, Don Shula, and Ara Paraseghian, for three. An added connection, Urban Meyer was a young assistant coach for Earle Bruce at Ohio State. Bruce had been the head coach at the University of Tampa, and know this: In his official biography, Meyer is characterized as “intense.’’ Those of us who worked with Bruce at Tampa know where he got that. Bruce was beyond intense. He was so “intense,’’ once as the coach at Tampa, he complained that the great Florida A&M University took too long for his wonderful halftime marching and musical presentation, demanded a 15-yard penalty for that rule violation, unknown to most of us, got it and marched to a touchdown in that win. Now, for the Gator Nation, Meyer is said to be a disciplinarian, said to teach fierce defense and a wide-open offense that features the spread formation and the quarterback in the shotgun formation most of the time. Good start, most will say, but, it will be even better accepted if he wins with it. The Meyer seems to have only one downside, the lack of winning success at the upper echelon of college football, but who had it out there, except SOS? The new young coach will have the money, the fans, the support, the bigtime players now and access to others in the years ahead, can assemble a fine staff, the facilities, and that which all of his background and time in life want so—opportunity. Urban Meyer also another leg-up, another credential his Gator Nation subjects love—He chose them, the Gators, over Notre Dame. Holy Moly! ##
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