- April 2, 2026
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College football coach Urban Meyer’s Hall of Fame career nearly ended before it began.
It was the summer of 2001. Meyer was an assistant at the University of Notre Dame, hired by legendary head coach Lou Holtz. That’s when Bowling Green University — in Meyer’s native Ohio — offered him the top job.
Meyer, then 35, initially rejected the offer. “I wasn’t all in on it,” he says, reflecting on that time some 25 years later and how the Bowling Green Falcons were coming off a 2-9 season in 2000. “I didn’t think it was a good school or a good opportunity.”
Meyer had to call two of his mentors — Holtz and former Ohio State and Colorado State coach Earle Bruce, another icon of the sport — and tell them he wasn't going to take the job. Both Bruce and Holtz had pushed for Bowling Green to make him an offer, touting Meyer as a rising coaching star.
“Earle was the first to MF me out,” Meyer says, recalling the cursing he got upon turning down the gig. Then Meyer told Holtz Bowling Green wasn’t for him, reasoning, “I just don’t think it’s a very good job.”
Meyer has Holtz’s response crystallized in his mind: “Of course it’s not a very good job,” an angry Holtz yelled at Meyer. “If it was a good job, they wouldn’t be calling your sorry ass for it!”
A scolded Meyer relented and took the Bowling Green job. That kicked off a storied coaching career, where his teams won three national championships in 17 seasons, among dozens of other accolades and titles. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2025. And Meyer’s first year at Bowling Green? It was one of the greatest turnarounds in the history of college football, and he went 17-6 in two seasons at the school.
Meyer, who later was the head coach at the University of Utah, University of Florida and Ohio State, is now a Siesta Key resident, where he enjoys the Florida life: lots of tennis, golf and fishing. An avid boater, his favorite trip on the water is north to The Vinoy in St. Petersburg. His go-to place to get a burger is New Pass Grill & Bait Shop on Ken Thompson Parkway.
Meyer first discovered the Sarasota-Bradenton area through family; his wife Shelley’s parents had a winter home in town. Meyer also spent some time in Bradenton as far back as 1982, at Pirate City when he was a scuffling young shortstop for the visiting Atlanta Braves. The Braves drafted Meyer in 1982 in the 13th round. His baseball career was short: The Braves cut him a year later.
Not much solace at the time for Meyer, whom many describe as ultra-competitive, but the letter he received from the Braves telling him he was out of a job has a historical footnote: It was signed by the Braves head of player development in 1982, Hank Aaron. “At least you have something signed by Hank Aaron,” Meyer’s dad quipped.
Urban and Shelley Meyer started coming to the area regularly and Siesta specifically around 2014. They bought a house in 2022, rented it out first, renovated it and now it’s home. “We just fell in love with Siesta Key,” he says one recent morning over a plate of huevos rancheros at The Oasis Cafe & Bakery on Osprey Avenue, on the mainland side of the Siesta Key north bridge.
While Meyer, 61, is enjoying the Florida life, it’s not necessarily a retired life.
There's golf, tennis and fishing. There are also six grandkids spread between Florida, Ohio and Las Vegas. And there’s his other work, including:
The Urban Edge: This dates back to when Meyer did something less formal at Ohio State and Florida, called Real Life Wednesdays. The crux: teach young male athletes the skills to live a productive life after sports. Topics include financial literacy, leadership, communication, conflict resolution and career goals.
Meyer partnered with the Sarasota Police Department on a pilot program in March 2025, in a five-day mentorship course for local sophomore and juniors who play sports. The program is now hosted by New College of Florida in Sarasota, working with 100 sophomore and junior football players from Booker, Cardinal Mooney, IMG Academy, Riverview and Sarasota high schools.
Meyer’s interest in doing this stems from the hundreds of high school students he met deemed one-dimensional heading to college because they were stars on the football field. “I’ve been to thousands of high schools,” Meyer says. “It always bothered me when people would label a kid as a bad kid without really knowing what their potential is or knowing their story.”
Meyer calls labels “the great lie” we tell young people because of GPAs, or preconceptions. “There are people who will tell you you can’t do something because of the color of your skin or where you grew up or something else. That’s nonsense,” he says. “There’s nothing you can’t do in this country if you put in the hard work and put in the time.”
New College board: Meyer initially got connected to New College through his Siesta neighbor, Mitchel Ruzek, an associate vice president at the school. That led to the expansion of Urban Edge. It also led to Meyer being named to the New College board of trustees late last year. Talking about the board role in early February, Meyer says he was intrigued by the school after meeting New College President Richard Corcoran and reading his 2024 book, “Storming the Ivory Tower: How a Florida College Became Ground Zero in the Struggle to Take Back Our Campuses.”
Sports broadcasting: Meyer is a studio analyst for FOX Sports, featured on the network’s “Big Noon Kickoff” pregame show. He also co-hosts a weekly podcast, “The Triple Option.”
Philanthropy: The Meyers, says Urban, support the Tebow Foundation, run by the family of Heisman Trophy-winner Tim Tebow. The couple also supports Sarasota anti-human trafficking nonprofit Selah Freedom. The son of military veterans, Meyer speaks often at veteran groups. “I can’t do enough for our veterans,” he says.
Meyer’s players, from quarterbacks like Tebow at UF and Alex Smith at the University of Utah and defensive stars like Joey Bosa and Chase Young at Ohio State, were often in the spotlight. Dozens of his players went on to the NFL, and his coaching tree of assistants who went on to get head coaching jobs is long.
Meyer’s career also hit some hiccups.
One major issue happened in 2018, when Ohio State suspended Meyer for the first three games of the season after a school investigation found he mishandled domestic assault allegations made against a former Buckeyes assistant coach, Zach Smith, according to ESPN. The school said Meyer misrepresented what he knew about the allegations in public statements.
At a press conference on the suspension, Meyer said loyalty to his mentor Earl Bruce — Zach Smith’s grandfather — clouded his judgment, ESPN reported. “I followed my heart and not my head,” Meyer said at the news conference. “... I gave Zach Smith the benefit of the doubt.”
Meyer’s University of Florida tenure, meanwhile, was marked by extreme highs — national championships in 2006 and 2008 — and a low point when he left the school after the 2010 season, citing physical and mental health issues. Asked what would be a career mulligan, Meyer says it was the way he left UF. He would have left, and the health issues were real, he says. But, in response to criticism over issues from roster management amid his departure to taking the Ohio State job less than a year later, Meyer says he would have done it differently.
From a win-loss standpoint, the biggest blemish in Meyer’s career was a short stint in the NFL, when he was the Jacksonville Jaguars head coach for 13 games in 2021. Looking back, Meyer says the team’s ownership didn’t come through with promises to improve facilities and make other investments in the team — which had lost 15 straight games before he was hired. He also internalizes his failures there. “It was a miserable time for me and a big mistake,” he says. “I didn’t get the job done.”
He adds: “I can’t stand losing.”
Most people who know or are friends with Meyer have seen that “can’t stand losing” side.
“Urban talks a lot about greatness,” Sarasota Police Chief Rex Troche says. “You see his passion, and you see he’s got a lot of empathy, a lot of heart.”
Meyer and Troche met through mutual friends. Meyer gave Troche a card and said the chief should call if he ever needs anything. A few weeks later, Troche called and soon after they launched the Urban Edge program.
Troche has been on Urban Edge Zoom planning calls with Meyer and the ex-coach “is very personable, but then he could flip the script very quickly and get down to business and has this intensity where you just automatically sit up in your chair,” he says. “Just watching him speak, you don’t want to disappoint him.”
Corcoran at New College is motivated by Meyer’s intensity, too. Watching Meyer speak to a group of high school students at an Urban Edge presentation, Corcoran says he leaned over to a New College provost and, marking the enthusiasm, whispered, “can you imagine if this guy was on your couch recruiting you to play for him? You’d be saying, ‘Where do I sign? Where do I sign?’”
“Urban is a passionate, brilliant, high-energy person,” Corcoran adds, “and you can’t be around him for five seconds without seeing all that come out.”
