The halls in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center took a patriotic feel for Patriot Week. The color blue was even allowed on the field — as long as it had red and white with it. 10:00 AM ET COLUMBUS, Ohio — The unmistakable drumbeat and the blaring of Bruce Springsteen’s voice starts five minutes before 4 o’clock on a Monday afternoon. The team room at Ohio State has been redecorated with flags representing all the branches of the United States military and Old Glory is positioned squarely in the middle behind a podium. But the Buckeyes making their way down a hallway covered in photos of former players who have served their country don’t even need to see it to tell the meeting will look and feel different, the volume on “Born in the U.S.A.” is a dead giveaway. Welcome to Patriot Week, Urban Meyer’s latest off-the-field project designed to arm his team with real-life lessons and turn his personal classroom into something useful for far more than football. “I’ve been mesmerized by this election coming up,” Meyer said as he kicked off the first of four lecture sessions building toward Memorial Day weekend. “You have an obligation and a responsibility to this country, and you can make a difference. But the No. 1 thing, write this down, is this is about honoring the men and women who serve this country. “I should have done something like this long before today.” No matter how long into his coaching career it took before the idea took hold in Meyer’s brain, it arrived full force for the Buckeyes as they listened to a host of speakers on topics ranging from a first-person account of Navy SEAL training to differences between Republicans and Democrats. They also, of course, mixed in some offseason conditioning…
Continue Reading: Inside Ohio State’s Patriot Week where No. 1 lesson is ‘honoring those who serve this country’
