Urban Meyer's Wife Gives Clear Stance on His Coaching Future: 'I Want Him To Be Done'
Urban Meyer’s coaching career came to an end on New Year’s Day as his Ohio State Buckeyes defeated the Washington Huskies 28-23 in the Rose Bowl.
Meyer has retired before, and that retirement lasted all of one year before he re-emerged at Ohio State. But this time, Meyer is confident that he will never coach again.
“I know this is relatively young, but I started young — 17 years as a head coach, 33 years doing this,” the 54-year-old coach said, according to ESPN. “And just very fortunate, and I do believe I’m done.”
Meyer first retired after the 2010 season while he was coaching Florida, citing health concerns and a desire to spend more time with his family. An OSU alum, Meyer would then join his alma mater 10 months later.
This time, however, his wife says she hopes he’s done for good.”I would be ecstatic if he didn’t (coach again),” Shelley Meyer said. “I’m done. I want him to be done. He’s too intense.”
Urban was joined in the postgame celebration by his wife and two of his three kids. Afterward, Shelley got emotional when asked if it had hit home that this was the end of her husband’s coaching career.
“The end? I don’t like that word,” she said. “But it’s a good thing. But it’s also, I mean, it’s bittersweet. It’s an end to something that we’ve been doing for a long long long time and I am sad. But I’m really happy for him because this is what needed to happen right now.
“And our family couldn’t be more thankful to Buckeye nation for just being so supportive of us through seven years and through the last year and the last five months and everything.”
If this truly is the end of Meyer’s coaching career, then he will go down as one of the all-time greats.
With two national championships at Florida and one at Ohio State, Meyer is one of three coaches — along with Pop Warner and Nick Saban — to win a national championship at two different schools.
Meyer’s all-time winning percentage is .855, which ranks first among active coaches and is just ahead of the man standing on the sideline opposite of him during the Rose Bowl, Washington’s Chris Peterson, who has a .789 win percentage for second place.
As head coach of Ohio State, Meyer addressed his team one last time in the locker room before handing over the reins to Ryan Day.
One last postgame locker room speech for @OSUCoachMeyer.
The reins are passed on to @ryandaytime.
????????????#GoBucks #WonTheMoment pic.twitter.com/auAy3u38P2
— Ohio State Football (@OhioStateFB) January 2, 2019
“The 25th football coach at the Ohio State University,” Meyer said about Day before putting his whistle around Day’s neck.
Day will inherit a team that has won at least 11 games in seven straight seasons. Ohio State has the 12th-ranked incoming freshman class, according to 247 Sports.
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