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April 1, 2015Dave hosts Craig on April Fool’s Day – WFNY Podcast – 2015-04-01
April 1, 2015Like Jim Tressel, Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer has a national championship ring with a Block O on it. Meyer likes that. Like Jim Tressel, Ohio State head football coach Urban Meyer has scarlet and gray sweater vests in his office. Meyer doesn’t like that.
Even in 2015, some five years after Tressel resigned amid NCAA violations, Meyer is still finding the former OSU coach’s trademark apparel in his office.
“It’s really something,” said Meyer, rubbing his head. “I credit Coach Tressel for instilling a culture of hard work and preparation into the Ohio State program. It was an enormous help to me when I first arrived, having players who already understood things like the importance of sticking to a routine. It’s a major part of developing a championship team, which Coach Tressel knows as well as anyone.
“I just had no idea that he approached his wardrobe with the same intensity.”
Meyer hired a cleaning crew to get his office in order when he took over in Columbus, and he was shocked to see box after box of sweater vests carried out of the Woody Hayes Athletic Center.
“I’m telling you, they didn’t stop,” said Meyer. “Box after box after box. They were at it for hours, and that’s not an exaggeration. Literally hours.”
The former Bowling Green, Utah, and Florida coach thought that was the end of it. While tidying up his office ahead of this year’s spring practice, however, Meyer found that he had barely scratched the surface.
“I thought we got ‘em all when I first moved in, but we weren’t even close,” Meyer said. “Weren’t even close. I mean, they were everywhere. In the back of closets, the bottom of desk drawers, tucked behind furniture. There was even a secret compartment. In case of a sweater vest emergency, I guess?”
The hidden compartment Meyer spoke of was discovered while the coach was giving a tour of his office to a group of Columbus-area elementary school students. One of the pupils, fifth grader Clarett Morris, asked why a copy of former Michigan coach Bo Schembechler’s book Bo’s Lasting Lessons: The Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership was on an Ohio State shelf.
“I don’t think I had ever noticed that book before, to be honest,” said Meyer. “The maize and blue on the spine did stand out, and the kids spotted it right away. It’s just one of those things that blends in after a while, you know?”
Meyer pulled the book off the shelf, only to discover that it opened a hidden compartment in the wall.
“It was this really exciting moment for me as much as the kids, finding this secret area,” said Meyer. “Really exciting. We thought it could be rare photos, Archie Griffin autographs, Woody Hayes playbooks, personal mementos. It could have been anything.
“Nope. Just another dozen sweater vests. Six scarlet, six gray. All perfectly pressed.”
This is thought to be the first discovery of the compartment by anyone other than Tressel. Former interim head coach and current defensive coordinator Luke Fickell never found it, as he was reportedly directed to a broom closet after asking where the head coach’s office was on his first day on the job. No one ever pointed him to the actual head coach’s office.
Meyer was quick to say that it was an honest mix-up.
“We like Coach Fick just fine,” said Meyer. “Just fine indeed. He reminds us a little of Milton from Office Space is all.”
Fickell declined to comment.
1 Comment
I actually read about that secret compartment years ago, but Ohio State officially disavowed its existence. Back then (circa 2009), the rumor was that there was a whole tunnel that reached underground to a number of off-campus locations, including bars, tattoo parlors, and possibly even some boosters’ offices. I guarantee that the box of sweater vests was just there as a ruse to keep anyone from looking behind the false wall that was put up in the compartment before the NCAA rectal exam in 2010.