Nice article. I'm so happy we got Meyer and not Spurrier. After that SC game I was angrier at Spurrier for beating us than at Meyer for losing. :-) Wasn't it the Sentinel that published the arrest article? Oliver Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
-----Original Message----- From: Mark Thomas <[email protected]> Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:40:12 To: GATORnews<[email protected]> Subject: [gatornews] Gators will be Chomp-ions Again *MEYER'S GATORS WILL BE CHOMP-IONS AGAIN<http://www.nypost.com/seven/08302009/sports/college/meyers_gators_will_be_chomp_ions_again_187224.htm?page=0> By LENN ROBBINS, New York Post* The fans at Saint John High School baseball games in Ashtabula, Ohio, thought their tall, handsome, laser-armed shortstop a bit odd. Two-and-a-half hours before every game, there was Urban Meyer raking the infield dirt. "People used to laugh at me, including pro scouts, who would ask me, 'What are you doing?' " Florida football coach Urban Meyer told The Post in an exclusive interview. "I wanted to make sure there wasn't a pebble out of place." Even as a teenager, Meyer wasn't leaving anything to chance. He is not meticulous, he is microticulous. "As soon as I hear him in the shower, I put the coffee on because I know in exactly five minutes he'll be at the table," said his wife, Shelley. The coffee isn't instant. The success Meyer has had at Florida is. The Gators' uber-successful football coach is passionate along with being meticulous. Consider this: Shelley logged him working 118 hours a week (for $6,000 in 1998) when he was the outside linebackers coach at Illinois State in 1988. "The thing about Urban is he attacks everything," said Dean Hood, the head coach at Eastern Kentucky and a childhood friend of Meyer's from Ashtabula. "There's nothing passive about Urban Meyer." So what happens when meticulous intersects with passion on the super highway known as Florida prep football? You get the dawning of a college football dynasty and the next Bear, Woody or JoePa. In addition to the two BCS titles and a 45-9 record with the Gators, Meyer is 83-17 in eight seasons at Florida, Bowling Green and Utah, where he went undefeated in 2004, and he's 5-1 in bowl games. "When the Utah job opened, I wanted it and I thought I was ready for it," said Utah coach Kyle Whittingham, an assistant with Meyer. "Urban got it, and I learned more from him in two years than anyone else. I'm not surprised by what he's doing at Florida. I expected it. He's the best coach in America." With an endorsement like that, with quarterback Tim Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner, running the offense, with a veteran defense that has become more nasty than a New York State Senate session, not picking Florida as The Post's No. 1 team would be grounds for an employer demanding a urine sample. "He loves this team," Shelley said. "He's in love with this team. I've never seen him like this, other than the 2004 Utah team." It has not always been love between Meyer and Gators fans. Many wanted Steve Spurrier to return to The Swamp in 2005 after the Ron Zook experiment collapsed like a Ponzi scheme. In fact, Meyer's 30-22 loss to Spurrier's South Carolina team that first season remains the most painful defeat of his career. "It was such a dig at him," Shelley said. "We knew that half of Gator Nation wanted Spurrier back. We knew that. We knew it. And then for him to win, we just knew that people were like, 'See, what are we doing with Urban Meyer here?' " Some still are asking. There are haters who don't love the fact that -- according to a recent Gainesville Sun story -- Florida players have been charged with 24 crimes in Meyer's four seasons. The count rose to 25 in late July when linebacker Dustin Doe was arrested for a second time, this time for driving with a suspended license. He has been suspended indefinitely. "If it's a major error, if it's a core-value issue, our track record is there's a good chance that player is no longer here anymore," Meyer said. "If it's a fight, if it's a mistake, you flunk a class, you make a college student error, there's a punishment. . . . I'm very comfortable with the kids we have in our program." That wasn't always the case, and Meyer, 45, admits so. He was the epitome of the Hungry Young Turk, passionate about wins and losses, meticulously working the Xs and Os. And then Marty Johnson came into Meyer's life during Utah's magical season of 2004. The Utes used Meyer's spread offense to bang on the BCS door, but the success story of that season was the rehabilitation of a talented back whose two arrests for DWI had landed him in the Salt Lake County Jail, not to mention Meyer's doghouse. Meyer said had he been 25, he would have cut Johnson loose. But by '04, Meyer had his own kids. He knew the big job he once worked 118 hours a week for (Florida recently rewarded him with six-year, $24 million deal) was on the horizon. "I've witnessed some things I shouldn't have witnessed," Meyer said. "I've witnessed the deterioration of some families, some people." The Meyers took Johnson into their home. Utah went 12-0. Johnson now is working in Sacramento. "Urban might not agree with me, but Marty Johnson got Urban to realize he could have more of an impact on his players' lives than just football," Shelley said. Despite what Meyer said about the arrests, Hood said the Florida coach is determined to change the perception that the Gators are swamp rats. "Every time there is something like that, a kid on his team that mistreated a woman or stole something . . . it's killing him," Hood said. The pain is lessened by coaching at the Disney World of college football. Gainesville is at the epicenter of Florida's vast high school talent pool. The facilities five-star. It's no wonder why when the Florida and Notre Dame jobs opened after 2004, Meyer chose the Gators. But unbeknownst to the Irish, they already had made Florida the leader in Meyer's clubhouse. Meyer, a Lou Holtz and then Bob Davie assistant in the '90s, was recruiting the Sunshine State for the Irish. On his way from Tampa to Lake Wales, he saw three exits for Gainesville. He took the one to The Swamp. "I walked around the campus on a January day and it was 75, everybody's tan and I walked into The Swamp," Meyer said. "Usually every stadium in the country's got rails and locks and padlocks and this one's wide open with everybody working out and training and getting in shape, and the orange and the palm trees and I'm making it sound over dramatic, but it was. "I walked on the 50-yard line pulled out my cell phone and called Shelley and said, 'Guess where I am? The Swamp,' " Meyer said. "She said, 'What's it like?' " What's it like? Well, it's where a meticulous, passionate man can build college football's latest dynasty, one pebble at a time. *Copyright 2009 NYP Holdings, Inc.* --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ GATORS: ONE VOICE ON SATURDAY - NO VOICE ON SUNDAY! 1996 National Football Champions | 2006 National Basketball Champions 2006 National Football Champions | 2007 National Basketball Champions 2008 National Football Champions | Three Heisman Trophy winners: Steve Spurrier (1966), Danny Wuerffel (1996), Tim Tebow (2007) - Visit our website at www.gatornet.us -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
