Wright Thompson on Urban Meyer

I just assumed it was the commonly used term for carnal knowledge, but now you've got me wondering. I'd never heard the full term before, but I was guessing it had become slangy coachspeak for a loser/nonprospect, sort of like "slapdick".

 

Gigglefleas. It's an Ohio thing. They're a special kind of dirty.

 

Finally got around to reading it. It's been a busy week.

I liked it, but I wouldn't put it above the S.L. Price feature or among Wright Thompson's best work. It was a nice personality profile, but I thought it was too two-dimensional in its approach. This is the new Urban Meyer, according to Urban Meyer. Near the end, Thompson mentioned that Shelley Meyer wasn't really sure he'd changed, but that felt so buried and brief. I thought that aspect was fascinating.

But the side of the story I most wanted to read about was the Ohio State perspective. Meyer's obsessiveness made him a champion, and now he's attempting to abandon that as he begins a new job. Well, Ohio State probably was hoping to hire the obsessive coach who was perhaps the best in college football during the first decade of the new millennium. Ohio State expects championships.

Thompson kept the story far away from the football field, and I wouldn't be surprised if that was a condition of the access he was given. I don't have a problem with making a concession like that in the context of major-magazine features. But if we're wondering whether Meyer can stick to his promises to his family, shouldn't we also wonder if he can stick to his commitment to his bosses? Sure, family comes first. But Ohio State is paying Meyer lot of money to coach football.

I respect the work Thompson did. He wrote it well, getting out of the way more than he often does with longer features. His anecdotes were great. But I would have liked a more nuanced look at what Meyer's new commitment means.

Aside: The story has a fantastic headline, "Urban Meyer will be home for dinner."

 

If this story is important enough to be written and you write it now, you're obligated to follow up in, say, October. Is Meyer still living by his nine-hour office-time limit? Is he, in fact, home for dinner?
I think the story would have been stronger if it had been reported now and written in the middle of the season.
Having said that, I think it's very well done.

 

Wright breaking it all down, on my blog, if anyone's interested: http://bit.ly/MJ3IFd

 

Brandon, thanks for that. I'll add it to my bookmarks along with the Lake Q&A.

 

Cool, glad you liked it.

 

Read it last night. I think it's good that Thompson got the access he did, and certainly he can spin a yarn and write the hell out of something. But it overall left me a little bit cold. Someone called it "Urban Meyer on Urban Meyer," and that's a pretty good assessment. Meyer was clearly the primary source, and I get that that's the point here, and when you get the opportunity for that degree of access from a recluse, you take it. But I didn't find him particularly interesting. Nor Honey Badger, for that matter, even though KVV did a good job on the piece - in this case, kind of a contrast in reporting styles because he got no access to Mathieu. Zilch.

Back to the Meyer piece. People here are talking about the remarkable details and observations he got, but I find them pretty banal, no? Meyer playing catch at a baseball game with his kid. Meyer giving a run-of-the-mill speech to his new team. Remarkably little there there, really, and that's on Meyer for being a bore, not Thompson, who did his best with what he had to work with. Same feeling I had when I read Verducci's Joe Torre book.

Make no mistake, ESPN: The Mag does tremendous work. But, to me, a piece like the Meyer one is kind of like an Esquire cover story on George Clooney or Angelina Jolie. A necessary evil to sell books so that you can fund the more interesting stories about people who aren't as famous or subjects with a broader scope.

 

Sometimes you have to do stories on the obvious subjects, which can suck because most of the stories have been told. But I'd rather see a profile on one of the top college coaches in the country than a piece on Cricket or something like that. Those are good too, but I like to see our top journalists doing stories on the top sports figures.

I remember picking up SI as a kid and seeing Frank Deford on Bobby Knight or Douglas Looney on Barry Switzer or Rick Reilly on Joe Paterno, SL Price on Steve Spurrier...

 

The cricket piece wasn't particularly good, IMO. It was long, it was about an exotic place, and it was about an obscure sport. But the story lacked a consistent narrative and turned into what many of his stories tend to do: Notes from the Road. It's a fun read, in a sense, though.

 

I saw it as a "vanity piece". A writer gets to a certain level and then says, "Hey, I wonder if they'll send me to India."

Rick Reilly famously bragged about getting SI to send him to France to have dinner with Lance Armstrong and Sheryl Crow.

Wright didn't do anything nearly that bad, but if I'm the editor, I say, "Look, I'm sure if you go there you'll write a hell of a story, but no...."

Wright's a brilliant writer and he's at his best when he's writing about college football.