Ohio State Mansfield dean and director Stephen Gavazzi with OSU president Michael Drake. Gavazzi has written an article on football coach Urban Meyer that has been published in the International Sport Coaching Journal.(Photo: Submitted) MANSFIELD — The last place Stephen Gavazzi expected to see his name was in a coaching journal. He played high school football in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where he was an outside linebacker in a very successful program, but followed more academic pursuits that led to a background in family therapy and his current position as dean and director at Ohio State-Mansfield. A huge Buckeyes fan, he read something about new OSU football coach Urban Meyer soon after he was hired that immediately clicked. Meyer’s incentive-based system bore an uncanny resemblance to studies Gavazzi has been doing for years on adolescents and their development and well-being. That led to a sit-down with Meyer in April, 2013. Their conversation went on Gavazzi’s backburner until the Buckeyes won the 2014 national championship. “When a lot of my friends and colleagues were saying to me from across the country, how in the world did your football team win with a third string quarterback, it wasn’t a mystery to me,” Gavazzi said. A professor of Human Development and Family Science, Gavazzi decided to put the long answer to that question on paper. His article, “Turning Boys Into Men: The Incentive-Based System in Urban Meyer’s Plan to Win” was published last week by the International Sport Coaching Journal. Editors of the journal felt Gavazzi’s work was so important to the coaching community that they are giving readers free access to the piece on what is normally a pay site. Gavazzi met again with Meyer this past summer to begin formulating the article…
Continue Reading: System is working: OSU dean pens article on Urban Meyer
