Coaches could tackle stress
Published 11:55 am Saturday, January 2, 2010
Speaking for everyone who will never earn $4 million a season to coach a sport, we suggest Florida football coach Urban Meyer spring for a hard-charging yet sensitive, shoulder-padded self-help guru.
Meyer, who last August signed a six-year, $24 million contract, recently roller-coastered through a Brett Favre-worthy flip-flop, one day abruptly resigning his position, citing health concerns, and the next day abruptly taking it back, making it a leave of absence instead. It’s been very emotional.
(Just to note for the record: Hypothetically, if this was a wildly successful, highly paid female coach named Urbana, the number of PMS jokes alone would greatly test the Internet’s true capacities.)
Meyer’s success at Florida is legendary; hence the money. The Gators owned a nation-leading 22-game winning streak — which ended with a 32-13 loss in the Dec. 5 SEC championship game. Which meant Florida wouldn’t play for the national title. (Instead, the Gators routed Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl on Friday.)
It was in the early morning hours after the SEC loss to Alabama that Meyer was hospitalized with chest pains. In the 911 call, Meyer’s wife, Shelley, tells dispatchers that Meyer is having chest pains, had taken a sleeping pill earlier, but was breathing, and appeared to be grunting. “He almost sounds like he’s kind of trying to cry,” she said.
Would that he could. A good cry might have saved him a couple of embarrassing press conferences.
Health is not a joking matter. Which is why it is frustrating to read of Meyer, and any highly paid privileged person suffering and complaining about troubles stemming from the failure to deal with stress, much of it self-induced. Especially when they sound like martyrs:
“I have given my heart and soul to coaching college football and mentoring young men for the last 24-plus years and I have dedicated most of my waking moments the last five years to the Gator football program,” Meyer said. “I have ignored my health for years, but recent developments have forced me to re-evaluate my priorities…”
Alabama coach Nick Saban: “The worst part of being a coach is you live in a state of constant anxiety, every day, every play, every whatever…That’s the life of a coach.”
This is where the strategic self-help guru would step in and say: Now might be the time to mention you know coaching football is a privilege, with no room for complaints.
Now might be the time to mention and acknowledge the college-age American men and women serving in the military, and the coach-age men and women leading them.
