Phoenix
At one time, before he became a statewide icon in Florida, before he became the mad scientist behind his spread offense, before he arrived here one step from the top of his profession, Urban Meyer lived a simple existence in Fort Collins.
He coached Colorado State’s receivers for the princely sum of $44,000. He was a new father. He and his young family loved life in the mountains.
“I loved the weather,” Meyer said when he arrived here with his second-ranked Florida Gators for Monday’s BCS national championship game against Ohio State. “I loved everything. The people. That’s arguably our favorite place we’ve ever lived.”
That was back in 1990-95. It remains the longest stint of his coaching career. He arrived at 25 years old fresh off a two-year stint coaching outside linebackers, quarterbacks and receivers while probably lining a few fields at I-AA Illinois State. In Fort Collins, under one of his former icons, Earle Bruce, Meyer would build the foundation that has led him, at 42, to become possibly the hottest young coach in the country.
“At Colorado State, oh, golly, from the minute he came he was what I’d say a complete football coach,” said Bruce from Columbus, Ohio, where he serves as a color commentator for Buckeyes games. “He could recruit well. He was very aggressive and dynamic and a good sales person in California. He had more great football players visit us from his area than any other area.”
Bruce first got to know Meyer after hiring him as a graduate assistant at Ohio State in 1986. Meyer was an Ohio blue blood, born and raised in the rust-belt town of Ashtabula. He played football at Cincinnati and received his master’s at Ohio State. He still has a picture of Woody Hayes, the late, great Ohio State coach, in his home in Florida.
Bruce and Meyer were cut from the same cloth woven by Hayes. In other words, Meyer wasn’t the, um, calmest assistant coach on CSU’s practice fields.
“He was into it,” Bruce said. “He was very enthusiastic and aggressive and wanted the kids to really achieve at his position. He got the most out of them. He was volatile. But there’s nothing wrong with what he did. Everybody knew if you did something wrong, he told you you weren’t doing very well.”
However, Meyer’s career reached an early juncture. CSU fired Bruce after a 5-7 record in 1992. In came Sonny Lubick, the defensive coordinator at powerful Miami (Fla.), fresh off two national titles. Meyer was 28 with a 2-year-old daughter. He went to Lubick and asked for a job. Every assistant kisses the ring of a new coach. But Meyer was different.
“I didn’t even know who he was,” Lubick said this week. “I checked with the other coaches. What got me was his energy. He said, ‘Coach, you don’t know me but you’ll never be sorry for keeping me.”‘
Lubick kept Meyer along with two other assistants, and Meyer soon became a recruiting hero. He landed such future NFL players as Joey Porter, Blaine Saipaia, Ula Tuitele and Eric Olson. Meyer’s work ethic was unmatched. Lubick remembers times when Meyer would pursue great prospects even when the mother closed the blinds and wouldn’t answer the door.
“When he locks in on you, he doesn’t mess around,” said Olson, who signed out of Ventura, Calif., and eventually played two years as a backup safety with the Jacksonville Jaguars. “He calls you every day. He was a very good guy.”
Good guy? Yes, but on the practice field his Woodyesque behavior didn’t quite blend with the more laid-back atmosphere Lubick tried to establish.
“His whole life he coached under and taught under and played under the old-school way of thinking,” said Matt Phillips, a CSU receiver from 1992-95 who runs a financial firm, AXA Advisors, in Greeley. “He yelled and screamed. That’s how he got results. Some of the young guys found it tough to get along with him.”
Lubick saw it, too. A receiver was ready to quit, but Lubick brought in him and Meyer for a meeting, and Lubick knew where Meyer was coming from. Lubick considered himself a graduate of the Woody Hayes school of coaching but also coached at Miami under Dennis Erickson, who taught Lubick the positives of being positive.
He passed on what he learned to Meyer.
“Players will test you, but screaming and yelling isn’t the way to do it,” Lubick said. “Pretty soon guys turn you off. Urban saw our approach. My secret is I let them think you’re nice but grind the hell out of them. Trick them into working hard.”
Meyer learned fast. Watch a Florida practice and he spends as much time patting players on the back as he does blowing the whistle.
“Sonny had a major impact on my style of coaching,” Meyer said. “I came from a much more abrasive style. Until Sonny, I never knew it could be done another way. I saw him take that team and do a fine job. That Colorado State team was ready to drop football. I learned a lot about treating people and my staff, and I’m forever indebted for that.”
Meyer hasn’t forgotten where he cut his teeth. Once a week this season, despite the relentless pressure from the media and Gator Nation every Saturday, Meyer called CSU offensive coordinator Dan Hammerschmidt whose wife, Karen, had died of cancer in July.
And in turn, the old Rams will marvel when they see one of their own on the sport’s highest stage Monday night.
“I’m just very proud and very, very pleased,” said Lubick, who will attend the game, as will Bruce. “Here he was without a job. Then I see the success he’s had and the risks he’s taken along the way. He’s earned it and deserved it.”
Staff writer John Henderson can be reached at 303-954-1299 or jhenderson@denverpost.com.
