Published: Sunday, 5/17/2015 Ohio State’s coach achieves success on the field while learning that there’s life beyond football BY DAVID BRIGGSBLADE SPORTS WRITER COLUMBUS — Urban Meyer is the toast of his home state, and a celebrity beyond. Since leading the Ohio State football team to a national title in January, the Buckeyes’ coach has been feted at the White House, chatted with David Letterman, and thrown the ceremonial first pitch at Yankee Stadium. Next season, his team may be even better. With 15 starters returning, the Buckeyes will open the year atop the polls and the favorites to repeat as champions. Coach Meyer has it all. There is just one big question: Can he handle the success? The last time Mr. Meyer won a championship at Florida — in 2008 — the chase of perfection that it spawned nearly cost him everything. He lost 37 pounds the following season, so wired and consumed by winning that he came to need two pills of the sedative, Ambien, and a beer before bed to steal three or four hours of sleep. The first loss of the Gators’ season that December brought on middle-of-the-night chest pains. Coach Meyer thought he was dying as an ambulance raced to his home. Now, as he begins his fourth season at Ohio State, his commitment to a balance between work and home confronts a similar crossroads. Except this time, those close to him see no comparison. No, his family, friends, and colleagues see a man who has rediscovered life beyond football — and found more success than ever on Saturdays for it. They see a man who has extended the lifeline of his dreams with the job he always wanted, and, now at peace, the job in which the 50-year-old Ashtabula native plans to retire. A man who his wife, Shelley, said handles defeat “125,000 percent better than he did at Florida.” A man who has put away his phone at church, calls his daughters, Gigi and Nicki, daily, and races off to 16-year-old Nate’s high school football and baseball games. Speaking to reporters at the Ohio State coaches’ clinic last month, Boston College coach Steve Addazio said he noticed a fundamental change in his former boss. “I’ve never seen him happier,” said Coach Addazio, an offensive assistant during Coach Meyer’s six seasons at Florida. “I’ve never seen him more at peace. After we won down there [at Florida], he still couldn’t find peace. “He’s very happy here. This is his home. We were together and I could just see in his eyes how he feels, and he just loves it. He’s more fired up today. When he’s at peace, he loves it. He’s happy.” For Ohio State and Mr. Meyer, it was the perfect marriage. “It is different this time,” Mrs. Meyer said in an interview with The Blade. “Urban is very comfortable here. This was the place. Ohio is where he’s comfortable…
Continue Reading: Urban Meyer’s balancing act
