Friday, December 11, 2009

Urban Meyer SI Profile by S.L. Price

Excellent feature story on Urban Meyer in the Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year" issue.



Written by S.L. Price, it's a very in-depth look at the University of Florida head football coach and the path he's taken to prominence. Meyer seems a fascinating guy who has had to both work extremely hard and overcome obstacles every step of the way. Perhaps additionally, or perhaps as part of this, Meyer also was raised by an extremely authoritarian father who constantly pushed him to achieve.

What helps make this a great piece is that Price is such a good writer and able to provide a nuanced portrait of the subject. Some of the stuff he's written are the book "Heart of the Game: Life, Death, and Mercy in the Minor League America" which I reviewed here and the SI profile "Big Love "cc!" (which I originally linked to here) about Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia.

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I enjoyed the piece on Meyer primarily for the quality of the writing, but also really liked the "2009 Sportsman Of The Year: Derek Jeter" article for the subject himself. I've never been a Yankee fan, but can't help but admire how the future Hall 0f Fame shortstop conducts himself and how he feels about the game of baseball. So cool to read about someone who gets joy out of what he does and doesn't take anything for granted.

This is completely an aside, but I also have thought of Jeter in the last week as the Tiger Woods infidelity scandal has grown. If Tiger wanted, he could have just as easily developed a Jeter-like "man around town with the ladies" persona and nobody would have faulted him. Rather than Jeter's lifestyle as a single man, Tiger appeared to choose BOTH the playboy and wife with kids lifestyles. C'mon, not sustainable and... frankly, not very cool.