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Urban's Way: Urban Meyer, the Florida Gators, and His Plan to Win

Urban's Way: Urban Meyer, the Florida Gators, and His Plan to Win
By Buddy Martin

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“Members of the ‘Gator Nation’ are going to burn the midnight oil turning these pages because Buddy Martin will be boldly taking them where no Florida fan has gone before.”
---Tony Barnhart, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/CBS

To write the Urban Meyer story, Buddy Martin enjoyed a vantage point rarely afforded authors in constructing the authorized biography of the University of Florida’s high-profile coach. Martin takes the reader where no other journalist has gone before as he reports the most intimate details about one of the nation’s top college football programs and its coach.

During the show-and-tell story of the 2007 Gator season, Martin listened on the headsets in the coaching booth, monitored Meyer’s locker room speeches, conducted in-depth interviews with assistant coaches and support personnel, ran on Florida Field with the team prior to the Gators game against Tennessee, and gave Tim Tebow his first Heisman Trophy quiz while having dinner together just weeks before he was named as the winner.

Urban’s Way, however, is much more than a look at the 2007 season. Martin dug deep into Meyer’s background, from his growing-up days in Ashtabula, Ohio, under the strict guidance of his father; to his tumultuous days as a young assistant when he almost quit the profession; to the dynamics of his close relationship with mentors Earle Bruce and Lou Holtz; to the ultimate prize as coach of the 2006 national champion Florida Gators. Readers learn how Meyer was encouraged by his father and his wife, Shelley, to keep going; how his career took off at Notre Dame and then as a head coach at Bowling Green and Utah; how the Falcons came together after their historic “Black Wednesday”; and the impressive manner in which he championed diversity among players in Salt Lake City. Florida fans will be surprised to discover how close Meyer came to choosing the Notre Dame job over the one in Gainesville, despite his yearnings as a small boy to someday coach the Fighting Irish. Through his intense research---and talks with Urban himself---Buddy Martin provides an amazingly detailed look into how a football coach is made.

This is not simply the authorized biography of one of college football’s top coaches; Buddy Martin also gives fans the inside scoop on the 2006 National Championship. In the chapter “The Joy of Winning It All,” players and coaches share their stories of that championship season that produced the middle leg of the “Gator Slam,” leading to the good life on the so-called Cul de Sac of Champions, which Urban shares with Gators basketball coach Billy Donovan.

It is rare that fans get inside the head of a top coach, but here full disclosure is offered about Urban’s personal faith, his Plan to Win, and the inner workings of the Spread offense. Readers are also treated to Meyer’s own breakdown of the national championship tape, including his Six Key Plays of the game.

Buddy Martin shines a bright light on Urban Meyer, the Florida Gators, and one of the top programs in the country. This is a must-have for Florida Gator football fans and one of the most insightful books ever written on college football.

Product Details

  • Amazon Sales Rank: #68566 in Books
  • Published on: 2008-09-02
  • Released on: 2008-09-02
  • Original language: English
  • Number of items: 1
  • Binding: Hardcover
  • 368 pages

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Praise for Buddy Martin and Urban's Way

“I know no one better than Buddy Martin to deconstruct the inner workings of the current ‘It’ Coach.”  --Jack McCallum, Senior Writer, Sports Illustrated

"Members of the ‘Gator Nation’ are going to burn the midnight oil turning these pages.” --Tony Barnhart, Atlanta Journal-Constitution/CBS

“Everyone knows Urban Meyer is a great coach...In Urban’s Way, he reveals why he is successful in every facet of his life.” --Lou Holtz, ESPN

"Few journalists gain such access and fewer still are Martin's equal..." --Dave Kindred, author of Sound and Fury

"Martin, a longtime chronicler of the UF program, does fine research and...reveals the coach's 'Plan to Win.'" --Tampa Tribune

"Florida football fans wanting an inside look at the Gators' program will be appeased with Urban's Way...The book by UF graduate and longtime sports writer Buddy Martin contains compelling tidbits." --Florida Times-Union

About the Author

BUDDY MARTIN is a Florida-born-and-raised journalist who grew up in the shadow of the Swamp and has known and interviewed every Florida football coach of the past fifty years. This is his fourth book on Gator football. The son of a newspaperman, Martin has won more than 150 awards during his journalism career, which includes sports editorships of four major newspapers—Florida Today, The St. Petersburg Times, the New York Daily News, and The Denver Post. Among the awards Buddy received was an Emmy in 1992 as an associate producer of The NFL Today show on CBS for his work with Terry Bradshaw. Martin left as associate editor of the Charlotte Sun (Florida) in 2008 to become executive editor of GatorCountry.com and Gator Country Magazine, where his popular columns now appear. He is a regular sports talk-radio commentator in Denver and in Florida. Buddy is also co-creator and associate director of the Sports Journalism Summit, held annually at the Poynter Media Institute in St. Petersburg. He and his longtime wife, Joni, and dog, Rinny, reside in Ocala, the birthplace of Buddy, his oldest daughter, Lori, and his late father, Wilton.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter One

The Cul-de-Sac of Champions

Three men sat looking at each other in an empty University of Phoenix locker room, pondering the impact of what had just happened. Florida’s national championship football coach glanced up at his father, Bud, and his mentor Earle Bruce, digging deep for some profound declaration. Urban Meyer’s lifetime dream was now a reality, and the magnitude of the accomplishment began to seep into his consciousness.

All week long, Meyer had tried to trick himself into thinking his opponent was just another team in red and gray. Just once during practice, when he had heard the sound of the Ohio State band playing "Hang On Sloopy," it hit home so hard that he doubled-clutched his emotions at the realization that he was coaching against the The team.

Honestly, Urban’s biggest dream could never have been this big: a complete annihilation of The Ohio State, 41–14. The Ohio State of his boyhood affection, The Ohio State where he cut his coaching teeth, The Ohio State that had also once fired his mentor Earle Bruce, and, by the way, The No. 1 team in America.

The joy—even more so the relief—was making him feel almost giddy and light of body. "I’ve never felt that way in my life," Meyer said later. "It was like somebody had drilled holes in the bottoms of my feet and drained out all the pressure."

Football coaches rarely have time to stop and reflect on their success as it is unfolding. There is always the next season, next game, or next down to spoil the mood. But to night, Meyer would briefly suspend that obligation. The events of January 8, 2007, had set the college football galaxy on its ear. However, even if he was contemplating one tiny taste of gloating, his two companions would probably not have tolerated it.

Turning to the two men who always seemed to have the answers in his life, Meyer was hoping for some sort of affirmation when he proclaimed:

"And now I get to do this for fun. It’s over! We won the national championship!" Now that the monkey was finally off Urban’s back, it was time to celebrate, have some fun and enjoy coaching football the next season—wasn’t it?

To his credit, the no-nonsense, down-and-dirty, hard-boiled Earle Bruce didn’t laugh out loud. And since they weren’t the kind of guys given to breaking out in table-dancing or backflipping, the coldly logical Bruce and iconoclastic Bud Meyer merely smiled and nodded.

Bud says he was already thinking that his son should have been out recruiting for the next season. Nobody knows for sure what Earle was thinking, but Urban figures he was just being humored by his old boss. "Coach Bruce was probably looking at me and really thinking, ‘yeah, rrriight!’ " Urban would say.

Then—poof !—that elusive moment was gone. No champagne toasts. No victory laps. No ticker-tape parades. No flights to Bermuda to lie on the beach and toast the ultimate victory with little umbrella drinks. The next morning in Gainesville it was back to school, back to recruiting, and back to babysitting one hundred or so football players. Urban had to pinch himself to make sure this had really happened the night before.

Almost like a Blockbuster rental movie, Urban Meyer’s Marvelous Adventure was over and felt as if it were due back Wednesday at five.

The dream had come true, however, and was, indeed, truly remarkable.

This former over-the-top, semi-out-of-control, control freak had hit the college football lottery. All those years as an assistant coach siphoning off the knowledge from his bosses, squirreling it away in diary form, and then field-testing his pilfered ideas—all that had come together like Harry Potter magic.

If there was a football god, he was probably repaying Urban Meyer as a responsible caretaker of the game and for being straight up with his players and fellow coaches for twenty-one years. There was no extended warranty on the honeymoon because he was back to work coaching that next morning. Even if there was a new college football sheriff, he was going to have to run for reelection.

Bud and Earle knew that the afterglow would soon be dimmed. Not even they could have predicted the ensuing struggle for the Florida Gator coaches, players, and fans in the 2007 season.

The history of Florida’s incredible run in football and basketball programs, however, was still being written.

Coming when it did—just four years after Steve Spurrier had suddenly departed and the football program had taken a dip under Ron Zook—this national championship and football resurgence would revitalize the Gator Nation. It also validated the choice of Director of Athletics Jeremy Foley and President Bernie Machen, who had received some criticism for taking the guy from Utah over the return of the favorite son, Steve Spurrier. Now they looked like geniuses.

Schools such as Notre Dame suddenly had Urban Meyer envy. In just two years at Florida—only his sixth overall as head coach—the guy with the "gimmicky" offense that critics said wouldn’t fl y in the Southeastern Conference had possession of the crystal football. But was he a onetime wonder, or had Urban Meyer restored the Gators’ glory of the nineties?

For sure, Meyer had become the brightest star in the coaching constellation as a sort of Bob Vila fixer-upper of college football. After his third year at Florida, his success rate in the restoration and/or turnaround of three programs over seven seasons as a head coach was off the charts: an .814 winning percentage.

In his third consecutive season as a head coach at the same school for the first time ever, Meyer knew he would have to prove he could win with his own material.

I would have a chance to find out for myself, becoming virtually embedded with the Gator team. I amassed a large amount of information and began studying the human dynamics of his program to try to crack the code.

This was a great vantage point and a choice assignment for a columnist/author whose roots tapped into that north-central Florida dirt… who grew up listening to Florida football on the radio before there were live telecasts… and who spent a large chunk of his forty-year journalism career observing and writing about these Gators.

This is not to say that Meyer’s magic formula was uncovered or that company secrets were revealed. However, after several tutorials on Meyer’s "Plan to Win," I began to understand this was the matrix for everything and Urban’s blueprint for success. Understanding of the Plan gave considerable enlightenment about the amount of time, money, and energy that Meyer and his staff put in to the care and feeding of players. At the same time, much is expected from those athletes as willing participants in Meyer’s "competitive excellence."

All his former players admit playing for Meyer "is hard!" Those who survive the rigors of mat drills and early-morning running punishment for missed class or misbehaving badly, however, have a sense of accomplishment, although, admittedly, maybe not at the time they were retching over a trash can or laboring to get up the stadium stairs.

He promises each player: "I will not quit on you." Much of Meyer’s approach stems from his conviction that he owes a player every chance to play, to graduate, and to achieve a normal, happy life by sorting out what ever demons haunt him.

Our close-up examination of Urban’s Way during the 2007 season also revealed an unusual approach to dealing with players that defies conventional coaching wisdom. And Meyer is never the least bit hesitant to challenge some of college football’s archaic methodology.

To wit:

• Some coaches talk about "family," but at Florida the families and children of all coaches and players are encouraged to attend Thursday’s "Family-Night Dinners" to hang out at their position coach’s home; parents of players also have direct access to Meyer and his staff at all times.

• Wives and children of those assistant coaches are invited on the field after the game and are escorted to the locker room by their husbands/fathers.

• Meyer requires his coaches and their wives to "babysit" players and provide a family atmosphere for them as they are mentored through football, academics, and social responsibilities.

• Through disciplinary action, players are given every opportunity to redeem themselves for mistakes made on and off the field. They are automatically suspended for major team or school violations—or eventually even terminated for breaking the law—but Meyer will continue to help them in their pursuit of their degree. These incidents are rarely, if ever, announced to the media.

• Special teams players are treated "special" since Meyer, himself, is their hands-on coach.

• Instead of constantly hammering on his players to get results on the field and in the classroom, he "bribes" them with the privileges of a "Champions Club," almost like a frequent-flier program.

• Meyer runs an off ense that he mostly made up, borrowing parts from here or there, but producing a new edition or version every couple of years and adapting it to personnel.

• In what might look reckless and almost crazy at the time—but is actually calculated and well thought out—Meyer has been known to call trick plays (he calls them "special plays") in big games when the odds look heavily stacked against him. And they usually work. H...

Customer Reviews

Victory, on the Field of Life5
This is not one of those typical chronicles of a special season that delves about as deep as speeches at a booster club confab.

Author Buddy Martin - in this authorized biography - delves into the life of Urban Meyer and produces an excellent exploration into what may have appeared to be an open-field scamper from the mid-level head coaching ranks to leading one of the most storied programs in the rich history of college football.

But a cursory glance of a career hardly tells the real story.

With his family roots in a state that is a hotbed for football - Ohio - Meyer was a solid athlete for Saints John & Paul Catholic School in Ashtabula, a defensive back for the Cincinnati Bearcats - graduating in 1986 - and a minor-league prospect in the Atlanta Braves farm system.

The real challenge, though, was on the horizon, as Meyer entered the collegiate coaching ranks, spending 1986-2000 in a variety of capacities with Ohio State, Illinois State, Colorado State and Notre Dame. Martin tackles these oftentimes frustrating years for Meyer, where self-doubt and concerns about a stalled career are juxtaposed with mentors like the legendary head coaches Earle Bruce and Lou Holtz.

When the door opened in 2001 for a head coaching opportunity at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, though, Meyer placed himself on an amazing fast-track in the rugged profession. Two seasons at BGSU landed him the head coaching post at Utah, where his teams - in 2003-2004 - tallied a 22-2 mark and two bowl victories, including the Fiesta Bowl.

And the next logical step was tackling a major program, with several opportunities on the table - including his dream job at Notre Dame - but Meyer accepting the task of bringing glory back to the University of Florida.

The exploration of the National Championship season is outstanding and Martin's reporting of 2007 has more important gems than the continued media focus on Meyer's harsh comments concerning "The Celebration."

Covering Meyer's game plan for life - personal faith and philosophies - and playbook for the turf wars - the breakdown of the Spread Offense is a must for any fan - Martin shows the continuing growth of a true educator.

Meyer is not just achieving victories on Saturday afternoons in "The Swamp," he is a role model to each player on the biggest field of the all....life. Ultimately, that is Urban's Way.

Go Gators4
Got my husband this book as a gift for his birthday. It arrived right on time. He read the first 200 pages waiting for his turn at jury duty, and is really enjoying this book. He said that although there's nothing amazing about the writing style, it has a lot of really great insights into the coach and the team ... a great behind-the-scenes look at Gator Football.

Very good book5
Hard to put down, very enjoyable both for football fans, Gator fans, and really gives you a new respect for Urban Meyer.