Urban Meyer: Former Florida Gators Coach Should Stick to Broadcasting

Dear Urban Meyer,

Forget about Arizona. Leave Ohio State alone. And, please, don't even think about filling Joe Paterno's shoes at Penn State.

Do what's best for yourself and your family, and stay off the sidelines for a while. You've done a tremendous job as a college football color commentator for ESPN this season, applying that same keen football mind and effective wit that made you a great coach at Bowling Green, Utah and Florida to provide insightful and entertaining observations of the sport in which you were such a rousing success.

But I don't implore you to continue your break from coaching out of some selfish desire to listen to you wax poetic about pigskin for months and years to come, though that certainly doesn't hurt.

Rather, Urban (can I call you Urb? No? Okay), this is about acting in your own best interests as well as those of the people closest to you. Coaching college football at the highest level, and doing so as successfully as you did, can, and often does, exact an enormous toll on one's mind, body and soul. That was evident after the 2009 SEC Championship Game, when you checked into a hospital while complaining of chest pains and dehydration.

We were all surprised, if not downright shocked, to hear how much damage the stress of coaching in the Swamp had done to your health and well-being, but also relieved to hear that you'd be taking a leave of absence to get some much-needed rest and relaxation. You spoke of your desire to take care of your body and get back to being a father and a husband. Sure, we were sad to see you go, a brilliant career cut short by the evermore burdensome demands of big-time college athletics, but who could blame you for wanting to watch your daughters Nicki and Gigi play collegiate volleyball and spend time with your adolescent son?

And we were just as surprised, if not in some ways put off, by your hasty return to coach your Gators in the Sugar Bowl less than a month later. It was nice to hear, though, that you had pared down your schedule a bit, particularly on the recruiting trail.

Then came a 7-5 season without Tim Tebow and the recurrence of intense stress that accompanied it. Then came the same concerns about your long-term health and whether chasing BCS championships was really worth it.

And then came your second retirement, from which you're not yet a full year removed.

Have you forgotten about that already, Urban? Has it taken you only 10-and-a-half months to wipe clean from your memory the physical pain you put yourself through and the emotional strain that exacted on your family?

College football will still be there, waiting to receive you with open arms, if you decide to sit out another year or two years...or, heck, even if you never put on another headset again. That's just the sort of respect you get when you build two programs and lift another to new heights. You're the Bill Cowher of college football, and even Cowher—who spent 22 years as a coach in the NFL, including 15 as the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers—has found enough solace outside of X's and O's to keep him content as a paid consultant of sorts for CBS going on five years now.

That's not to say that you should stay out of coaching for that long, if not forever. Ultimately, you'll do what you want to do and what you think is best for yourself and your family.

Just don't let the millions of dollars thrown at you by boosters and administrators from across the country obscure what's most important—your health and your family.

Rest assured, the money will be there. Those years of supporting your own flesh and blood in their athletic pursuits, those fleeting moments of not only being a proud father, but having the freedom to show your pride in person, won't wait quite so patiently.

Sincerely,

College football fans everywhere.