At the outset of the 2009 football season, Urban Meyer weighted 217 pounds. By the end, he weighed 180. He lost 37 pounds through the course of that undefeated regular season while washing down his two Ambien a night habit with beer so he could fall asleep. "I was addicted to winning," he says of those days.
Meyer recently sat down with Andrea Kramer for an interview with HBO's Real Sports. We don't have the full video, but here is a snippet that focuses on the 31 arrests Gator players incurred during the Meyer tenure - and specifically, on Aaron Hernandez.
A few quotes, courtesy of Eleven Warriors:
On his personal rock bottom, at his daughter Gigi's volleyball scholarship ceremony: “I get to the gym and this beautiful little girl stands up and says, 'Mom, I want to thank you, you were always there. And dad, you were never there, but I love you, too.' And I remember just going, 'Oh my gosh, it happened.' I was the guy that wasn't there. And I remember just getting in the car and driving and tearing up in the car on the way home and going, 'Wow, it happened. I gotta get this right.'”
On when daughter Nicki confronted him at a Gainesville hosptial: “I couldn't answer her. You know, we'd already won two, why? That hit really hard when she said that.”
Shelley Meyer's reaction when the Ohio State job opened: “If ever he would go back, it would be Ohio State because he always talks about Ohio State. And that news broke and I was devastated.”