Urban Meyer to Join ESPN: So Much for Family Time

Is it sad that I knew something along these lines was going to happen?

Urban Myer retired from college football on Dec. 8, 2010. He claimed that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Urban Meyer was hired by ESPN on January 31, 2011.

It took him a grand total of 54 days to leave retirement and rejoin the world of sports.

So much for family time.

Myer felt the best decision for his life was to leave the constant grind and stress of coaching a high-level college football team and instead dedicate more time to his family.

He has a wife named Shelly, two daughters, Nicki and Gigi, and a son named Nick. They seem like quite the quaint family.

I wonder how they feel about their pops signing up with ESPN; it shouldn’t be too big of a commitment, right?

Urban Meyer was hired by ESPN to primarily be a college football game analyst, which at first doesn’t seem incredibly daunting in comparison to the life of a coach.

But then factor in that they will want him to appear on studio shows like SportsCenter, College GameDay and College Football Live.

Meyer believes that he will still be able to spend the same amount of time with his family that he originally hoped for in retirement, but how in the heck does that make any sense whatsoever?

Now, keep in mind I’ve never worked for ESPN, oddly enough, and I don’t understand the inner workings of their programming.

However, I do know what it takes to analyze a game and how much of your time and energy it demands.

Now add to that the time it takes to prep for being on such a high-profile show like SportsCenter or College GameDay, and you’ve got yourself a full-time gig.

When I first heard that Meyer had retired again, I actually believed that he did it in order to pursue the Denver head coaching job and meet back up with his old buddy Tim Tebow.

It was hard for me to trust a word that he was saying because I’ve become so used to athletes and coaches lying to us.

Sports have become shady business.

Perhaps it has always been that way, but now the public is starting to catch on.

Be it the scandal with Brett Favre, Pete Carroll conveniently ditching USC right before the NCAA brought the hammer down or even the controversy surrounding Cam Newton and his eligibility at Auburn this year, there is tons of shady stuff going down in the world of sports, and it’s made it hard to even trust a guy who just wants to spend time with his family.

But it turns out I was right!

Meyer is not going back into coaching, obviously, but my gut feeling that there was something more on the docket for him came true.

He retired to spend more time with his family, but for him to act like that was the sole reason is disingenuous.

The demands of working with ESPN are considerably lighter than being a head football coach, so it’s not fair to draw many comparisons there.

But Urban Meyer doesn’t seem to be the type of guy who is going to just go through the motions.

He strikes me as somebody who is going to put his all into his work, even if that means dedicating crazy amounts of time and effort.

So much for family time.