CLEVELAND, Ohio -- As a boy in Ashtabula, Urban Meyer would scamper through the snow belt flurries and squalls when Christmas neared. His eyes were on presents, but his ears were attuned to the Ohio State-Michigan game's play-by-play floating through the wintry air from shopping center loudspeakers.
Those days are past, but they were preludes in a way to his announcement Tuesday that he will retire after Ohio State's Jan. 1 Rose Bowl game against Washington.
A turbulent season
This 12-1 season was hard. Troubled by a brain cyst aggravated by his emotions and tension during games, he was also suspended for three games for protecting the football program instead of showing compassion for an aide's battered wife, then lying rather than taking action.
At age 54, Meyer now leaves coaching, a profession he considers not just a job, but his life's mission, a second time. He couldn't handle success. His only mechanism to do so was all-out commitment.
He tried to change
He often spoke at Ohio State of faithfully attending team victory meals after skipping them at Florida, but the only thing on the menu for him was his hunger to win more.
He intended to moderate his work, be home at dinner, take care of himself, and for God's sake not do compulsive, monomaniacal things like locking himself into a stadium room and calling recruits minutes after winning the national championship, as he did with the Gators.
The drive he had gave him almost everything, an .851 lifetime winning percentage, a preposterous 82-9 record with the Buckeyes.
But it also took away his health. It checkered his career by the compromises he made in disciplining star players at Florida and in lying about domestic violence allegations against now-fired aide Zach Smith. It eroded Meyer's support from Ohio State's top administrators. And it worsened an already controversial national reputation.
Daring innovator, doomed by his devils
As Ohio State's coach, he was daring in the big games, something new after Woody Hayes' conservatism, John Cooper's suffocating tightness, and Jim Tressel's reliance on defense and glorification of the punt.
Meyer was one of the innovators of the spread offense, devising it over long hours beneath a leaky roof in his first head coaching job at Bowling Green.
"That is not a good job," he said as a Notre Dame aide to Lou Holtz, who was a mentor.
"Of course not. That's why they're offering it to you," snapped Holtz.
Meyer's other mentor, former Ohio State coach Earle Bruce, screamed "What in hell was that?" when he watched an early BG practice with Meyer.
"Coach, it's off-tackle power only with spread concepts," Meyer said.
He brought more room to the field of play, but his ambition and shortcuts crowded him off it; he sought balance in runs and passes, an idea dropped because of current quarterback Dwayne Haskins, but lost it between job and family.
The tidings of the season
In his seven seasons in Columbus, Meyer won five Big Ten division championships and three conference titles, the last on Saturday against Northwestern. Twice, the Buckeyes made the College Football Playoff with him, winning the inaugural edition in 2014.
Another Christmas season approaches, Meyer more than ever knows gifts are not really free, or even what he wanted.