The Best American Sports Writing 2013 (59 page)

The coach in the book forms a relationship with the school janitor, a mystical Christ figure, who becomes a spiritual guide in his search for himself. Meyer left Stanford looking for his own guides. “Without anyone really knowing it,” he says, “I went on a yearlong research project. How can you do both? How does Bob Stoops be a good dad and husband and still have success?”

Meyer traveled to Norman, Oklahoma, and met with Stoops, who said, “Live your life. When you go home, go home.”

He flew several times to Texas to sit with Mack Brown, who told him to remember when he loved the game. Before you wanted a perfect season, before million-dollar homes and recruiting wars, once upon a time you loved a game.

Meyer visited West Point, stayed with Nate in coach Red Blaik's old house. He sat with Army coach Rich Ellerson in the little café behind the cemetery, in the shadow of General Custer's grave. Holding hot cups of coffee, they talked about the essential truths often hidden by the contradictions, the things obscured by money and success. Ellerson told Urban that football itself helped nurture and protect its values. The snippets of life lived between the snap and the whistle could purify everything bad that people did to the game. “It clarifies,” he said. Meyer, who'd seen the lines blurred in the SEC and within himself, said he wasn't sure. Ellerson offered his sermon on MacArthur and the Corps and the West Point mission: “To educate, train, and inspire . . .” Urban stared at him. “Wait a minute,” Meyer said, “you really believe this.” They talked about why they loved a game, following the question:
Why do I coach?
At Bowling Green, he'd loved tutoring his players in math. Could he have that back again? The game was the problem, but maybe it could be the solution too.

West Point came in the middle of a 13-day road trip with Nate, maybe the best 13 days of Urban's life. The two helicoptered to Yankee Stadium, hung out for almost a week in Cooperstown, where they held Babe Ruth's bat. “I was seven years old again,” he says.

Back home, Urban slept in. Shelley couldn't believe it, getting up around 7:30 to work out, leaving Urban in bed. When he finally dressed, he'd walk a mile to a breakfast place he loved, lounge around and watch television with the owner, then walk a mile back.

“His mind shut off,” Shelley says.

Shelley begged him to do this forever. She'd never seen Urban so happy. He coached Nate's baseball and football teams. He played paintball. The family went out for dinners, and Urban was
present
, cracking Seinfeld jokes and smiling.

But he still felt empty. He'd ask,
Is this it?
He missed the ability to make an impact; he'd gotten into coaching to be a teacher. A challenge grew from his trip to West Point: What if he could have the feeling of Bowling Green on the scale of Florida? What if he could answer the question posed in the novel: Why?

Yet beyond the intellectual journey, he missed football on an almost biological level, deep down in the place where his ambition—where his love, and his rage—hibernated. In early November, he stood on the sideline at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. The crowd roared. God, he loved the crowd. Sometimes, when it felt as if they'd never lose again at the Swamp, he'd slip his headset off just for a moment and let the noise cover him like a hot rain. In Tuscaloosa, with LSU and Alabama waiting to take the field, the stadium lights bright on the green grass, something awoke. The person standing next to him looked over to find the old Urban Meyer, eyes dark and squinted, arms crossed, muttering, “I miss this.”

In late November, Meyer wanted to accept the Ohio State job. Shelley demanded a family meeting. They had all gathered around Thanksgiving in the Atlanta apartment of their oldest daughter, Nicki, who played volleyball at Georgia Tech. Shelley told the kids to ask anything. He heard the fear in their voices: how could he be sure he was ready to go back?

“We wanted him to make promises,” Shelley says.

 

During the fall that Urban spent searching, as the rumors circled about his return to the game, Bud Meyer was slipping away. Lung disease had left him frail and weak. Urban used his freedom to visit whenever he wanted. Around the LSU-Alabama game, Urban and Bud watched a television news report about the open Ohio State job. Urban's picture appeared on the screen.

“Hey, you gonna do that?” Bud asked.

“I don't know,” Urban said. “What do you think?”

Bud turned to face him, gaunt in the light. An oxygen tube ran to his nose. Twenty seconds passed, the silence uncomfortable. Thirty seconds.

“Nah,” Bud said. “I like this s— the way it is. I don't care who wins or loses.”

His response couldn't have been more out of character. Never before had Urban asked his dad for his opinion and not gotten direct, blunt advice: “I think you should . . .” In his father's answer, there was a measure of absolution—maybe for both of them. Sometimes walking away isn't quitting. Sometimes, when the fire burns too hot, walking away is the bravest thing a man can do. Bud offered the best mea culpa he could, in his own way. Maybe he knew this would be one of their last conversations. Ambivalence was his final gift. Whatever Urban chose to do with his future, he could walk through the world knowing he had his father's blessing. They never discussed coaching again.

Two weeks later, Bud Meyer died in his son's arms.

 

Three days after his father's funeral, five days after his family demanded promises, Meyer accepted the Ohio State job. During his first news conference, he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a contract written by Nicki, which he'd signed in exchange for his family's blessing. These rules were supposed to govern his attempt at a new life, as his father's example had governed his old one. So much was happening at once, and as he said good-bye to the man who molded him, he began undoing part of that molding.

He went to work.

Meyer unpacked his boxes, setting up little shrines on the blond wood shelves of his Ohio State office. To the right, positioned in his most common line of sight, he placed a blue rock with a word etched into it:
BALANCE
. Behind the rock went a collage of photographs, the orange of a sunset from his lake house—his particular harbor—and of his old church in Gainesville. The shrine was a gift from his pastor in Florida, a prayer from people who love him that he won't lose himself again.

Framed above his desk hung the contract he signed with his kids, written on pink notebook paper.

 

1. MY FAMILY WILL ALWAYS COME FIRST
   .
   
2. I WILL TAKE CARE OF MYSELF AND MAINTAIN GOOD HEALTH
   .
   
3. I WILL GO ON A TRIP ONCE A YEAR WITH NICKI
   —MINIMUM.
   
4. I WILL NOT GO MORE THAN NINE HOURS A DAY AT THE OFFICE
   .
   
5. I WILL SLEEP WITH MY CELL PHONE ON SILENT
   .
   
6. I WILL CONTINUE TO COMMUNICATE DAILY WITH MY KIDS
   .
   
7. I WILL TRUST GOD'S PLAN AND NOT BE OVERANXIOUS
   .
   
8. I WILL KEEP THE LAKE HOUSE
   .
   
9. I WILL FIND A WAY TO WATCH NICKI AND GIGI PLAY VOLLEYBALL
   .
   
10. I WILL EAT THREE MEALS A DAY
    .
    

 

Part Three

 

Seven months later, Meyer drives through the outskirts of Cleveland, 60 miles from Ashtabula, past the refineries and smokestacks, his son Nate in the backseat. They're almost at the Indians' stadium, where Urban is scheduled to throw out the first pitch in a few hours. Meyer's living his life, keeping the promises he made.

“I've really been working on that,” he says. “I'm gonna do that in the fall. I'm gonna go home. I'm not gonna bring my work home with me and not be able to sleep at night. I'm not . . .

“. . . that's easy to say now.”

The season is still a few months away. He hasn't lost a game yet. That's what pushed him into the darkest corners of his own personality. He squeezes the steering wheel.

“Can I change?” he asks.

The question hangs in the air. In public he talks a good game, but he knows how hard the next year will be. Maybe, deep inside, he already knows the answer. The skies darken. Rain will soon land on the windshield with heavy thumps.

“TBD,” he says. “To be determined.”

 

Father and son play catch in the rain, standing in shallow left at Progressive Field, the bowl of seats empty around them. Urban smiles when Nate backhands a grounder, a schoolboy grin, the one that believed what the girls whispered in the hall back in the day. Meyer's enthusiasm is as powerful as his rage. Halfway is for other people. When he took his girls to Rome and Israel for nine days, they begged to sleep in just once. Nope. “We attacked Rome as hard as you possibly can,” he says and then mimics his own stern voice: “‘We are gonna have fun on this vacation!'”

Urban throws one high into the air, watching as Nate settles underneath it, the scoreboard right on top of them, thunder clapping in the air, the drizzle coming and going.

“I can't believe they're letting us do this,” he says.

These are the things he lost in Florida, and the things he's found in Ohio. He's missed only one or two of Nate's baseball games since taking the job, an astonishing change. Nicki is entering her final year at Georgia Tech, and her coach scheduled Senior Night on the Saturday of the Buckeyes' bye week. Urban will walk onto the court with Nicki, a walk he's made with other people's children but never with his own. He's eating, working out, sleeping well, waking early without an alarm clock. On the night before the 2012 Buckeyes gather for the first time, he's playing catch with his son in Cleveland.

“Bucket list,” Urban says.

The Indians arrange for Nate to throw out the first pitch with Urban, and in the dugout, the team gives Nate a full uniform, number 15, with
MEYER
on the back. Urban pulls out his phone and takes a picture, sending it to Shelley. He follows his son into the clubhouse, calling out in his best announcer voice, “Leading off for the Cleveland Indians, Nate Meyer.”

Two hours fly past, and they're led back onto the field. Now the bleachers are full. The speakers echo their names. Urban loops it a bit, but Nate throws a bullet for a strike.

“What a night, Nate!” Urban says, turning to the Indians guy following them with a camera. “Get me those pictures. I'm gonna blow them up. My man brought it!”

They find their seats. Nate holds a slice of pizza. Urban pours a cold Labatt's and digs into a bowl of popcorn. The sun sets over the Cleveland skyline, and the lights shine on the grass. Urban's mind and body are in the same place. Urban and Nate recite favorite movie lines and list the ballparks they've visited. “I'm melting inside,” Meyer says finally. “You can't get this back. Remember That Guy? I'm not That Guy right now.”

 

The next morning begins back in Columbus with heavy metal music grinding out of the weight room. Shouts and whistles filter in from the practice field. No other place in the world sounds like a football facility, and the effect is seductive, pulling anyone who's ever loved it back in, like a whiff of an ex-girlfriend's perfume. Outside, hundreds of youth football campers run around like wild men. This week, Meyer's constant nervous pacing—“I'm so ADD,” he says—includes laps around the camp, taking pictures with parents, urging moms to make their meanest faces for the camera. He spots Godfrey Lewis, one of his former running backs at Bowling Green, who's now a high school coach.

“What's up?” Meyer asks, beaming.

“You,” Lewis says. “That's what's up, Coach.”

“You look good,” Meyer says. “You got kids?”

“My son is over there,” Lewis says.

“Make sure I meet your son. Where's he at?”

“Alex!” Lewis yells.

A boy at the water station turns his head, finding his dad standing with Urban Meyer.

“Alex!” Meyer yells. “Hurry up. Let's go. Let's go.”

Alex Lewis runs over.

“Your dad played for me,” Meyer says. “He was a great player. Good father, good guy, right? How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Can you run?”

“Yes,” Alex says.

A cocky, curious kid comes over too, poking his head into the conversation, popping off about how he's faster than Alex. A look flashes across Meyer's face, his eyes bright. He cannot help himself.

“Right now!” he barks.

Meyer calls to Lewis. “Godfrey,” he yells, “this guy says he's faster than your boy. We're gonna find out right now.”

Godfrey is wired too.

“Right now!” he says.

“Right now!” Urban yells. “Right now! You ready?”

He calls go, and the kids break, Alex Lewis smoking the opposition. Urban and Godfrey stand together, elated, a messy world shrunk to a 10-yard race. Someone wins and someone loses, and there's no ambiguity, no gray. The heat makes the air smokehouse thick. The morning smells like sweat and rings with whistles and coach chatter, the game always the same no matter how much the men who love it change, a simplicity that waits day after day, beautiful and addictive.

 

Meyer grimaces and wipes a streak of sweat off his face with his shirt. Lunchtime racquetball is war. The football ops guys know to ask Meyer any difficult questions before the game, because losses blacken his mood and rewire a day. It's a running joke: did Coach win or lose? Today Meyer's playing Marotti, his friend and strength coach. Best of three, tied at one game apiece. Meyer works the angles, lofting brutal kill shots that just die off the wall. Marotti smacks the bejesus out of the ball. Muffled curses echo through the glass door. Meyer chases after a ball and doesn't get there. He cocks back his racket, about to smash it into the wall, but he pulls back.
Be calm
. The end is close, a few points away. Shoes squeak, and the ball pops off the strings, laid over the backbeat of Marotti bellowing, “F—!” Meyer loses another point, then another. About to lose the match, he grimaces, flexing his racket to slam the ball off the floor in disgust, then checks his rage.
Be calm
.