OT: Aaron Hernandez and Urban Meyer
The Boston Globe Spotlight Team is presenting a series on the background and downfall of Aaron Hernandez. Tonight’s Part 2 focuses on his time at Florida under Urban Meyer. A particularly disturbing dissection of Meyer’s Win-at-All-Costs modus operandi. Well written and deserving of a read.
** posting from my phone and only my second OP. Many apologies if I do not embed the link properly.
https://apps.bostonglobe.com/spotlight/gladiator/florida/?p1=Article_Trending_Most_ViewedOctober 14th, 2018 at 10:18 PM ^
You should post this on 11 Warriors.
October 15th, 2018 at 9:18 AM ^
Also, note that this is just article 2 of 6 the Boston Globe series: "Gladiator: Aaron Hernandez and Football, Inc."
October 14th, 2018 at 10:18 PM ^
Thanks for the find.
A must read.
Thankfully, for OSU's athletes/students Urban has changed his ways.
October 14th, 2018 at 10:44 PM ^
Would also like to add, that given that Urban has no recollection of meeting with the high school principal, he obviously had his selective memory deficit dating back to at least 2006. His wife must be a saint! I would not be surprised if Urban either had part ownership in the drug testing lab, or at least communicated to the lab not to check for masking agents or adulterants, otherwise, no way Hernandez passes the tests. Either way, bet the lab is run by a UF grad.
Someone should send this article to Harrison, or better yet, it should be required reading to all parents of Urban's recruiting classes.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:03 AM ^
Parents who buy his bullshit don’t care. The good ones, like Rashan’s mom, see right through that sack of shit.
October 15th, 2018 at 1:37 AM ^
Meyer needs to be put into a convalescent home.
October 15th, 2018 at 1:47 PM ^
It must be the cyst. Cyst's have been known to selectively erase memories that can be incriminating.
October 14th, 2018 at 10:20 PM ^
After reading that article, Tebow seems to be painted in more of a negative light than Meyer.
October 14th, 2018 at 10:58 PM ^
Tebow taking a 17-year-old freshman to the bar and covering for him is an interesting plot twist.
At the end of the day it was still Meyer in charge though.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:46 PM ^
This story has been out there for a few years now.
Tebow went out w/ his teammates but didn't drink. And he had a friendship w/ Hernandez. I don't see anything wrong with Tebow being there that night. Hernandez was already a UF student for several months by April 2007 (e.g., this wasn't a recruiting visit).
I don't know if Tebow "covered" for Hernandez either. Per the police report, Tebow tried to be a peace-keeper at the bar. And calling Meyer was probably a good idea: Hernandez was in an incident where the Police were involved and a Head Coach needs to know those things.
That there weren't charges filed? That's likely where Meyer came in.
October 15th, 2018 at 1:19 AM ^
Grammar Nazi here: its "ie", not "e.g.". Take a Latin class dweeb?
October 15th, 2018 at 1:27 AM ^
You are correct. I did mix that up.
As for Latin, the Catholic High School I attended (De La Salle) back in the day didn't offer that foreign language. If only I went to Rice instead!
October 15th, 2018 at 9:52 AM ^
No, not saying there's anything wrong with it. And not saying important details weren't excluded, either. t would be a totally unsurprising and accepted thing if it weren't for Tebow having a very well defined, Christian, wholesome, personal brand.
This article makes Tebow out to seem like he's taking an underage kid to a skimpy dressed bar and then when Meyer wanted to kick AH off the team, he acquiesced to Tebow's pleas. Made it seem like Tebow spoke out of both sides of his mouth, so to speak.
All I'm saying is this story paints Tebow in a more negative light than Meyer, which I think is true.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:16 PM ^
Had a friend date Tebow he is one giant fraud. He’s a POS. The sick crap he did to her is beyond psycho path.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:43 AM ^
If you make that claim then you should elaborate...
October 15th, 2018 at 1:39 AM ^
Username checks out.
October 15th, 2018 at 5:42 AM ^
On the flip side...My daughter has ulcerative colitis, and used to go to the Chidrens Hospital at UF. Tebow was there all of the time with the really sick kids. He spent hours there going from room to room, especially in the ICU.
October 15th, 2018 at 7:39 AM ^
Yeah. Hmmm. I don't believe you for some reason.
October 14th, 2018 at 10:30 PM ^
Yawn. Let me know when morality plays any role in public opinion.
October 14th, 2018 at 10:40 PM ^
sad but not the least bit surprising about either of those two.
October 14th, 2018 at 10:48 PM ^
Aaron Hernandez was sexually assaulted so he isn’t accountable.
/s
October 14th, 2018 at 11:09 PM ^
Sodomizers love tight ends.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:05 AM ^
He should have gone to penn state.
October 15th, 2018 at 9:00 AM ^
"Squeal like a pig!"
October 15th, 2018 at 12:26 AM ^
Says no one at all. We all have unique choices to make and make different degrees of wise and unwise choices, but those choices are impacted by circumstance and environment. Why wouldn't we want to learn what forms and shapes who is thought of as society's worst so we can improve the range of choices we all have going forward? Sorry if that doesn't gel with your apparent theory of individualized manifest destiny (which is a myth btw).
October 15th, 2018 at 8:03 PM ^
I'm not sure if you're joking but a story JUST came out that Aaron was (a) molested as a kid, (b) in a sexual relationship with his HS QB, and (c) beaten by his homophobic dad.
This is per quotes from his brother and the QB.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:10 PM ^
Urban Meyer is a bad guy. His actions are probably no worse than a number of college coaches but the sanctimonious bullshit that oozes out of him sets him apart.
October 15th, 2018 at 10:06 AM ^
Ummm, I don't believe that most college coaches cover up domestic violence. If I am wrong, please correct me.
And yes, the sanctimonious bs needs to stop.
October 15th, 2018 at 8:06 PM ^
If that "number" is somewhere between five and ten, I could possibly agree with you. Urban seems to be worse than vast majority of the FBS coaches.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:14 PM ^
The coach later acknowledged that Hernandez did, in fact, fail a single drug test. For the first offense, Florida’s penalty was a one-game suspension and additional testing. A second failure would have cost him six games. After a third, Hernandez would be gone for a year.
It was no surprise Hernandez failed one test, but how did he not fail more? Hernandez smoked so much marijuana he later told his lawyer that at Florida “every time I was on the field I was high on weed.” In a recorded jail call, Hernandez reminisced with his mother about rolling marijuana blunts with his stepfather and two Florida teammates at a Gainesville hotel.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:16 PM ^
Hard to believe urban could come across any scummier after this summer, but alas he does.
October 15th, 2018 at 4:21 AM ^
STOP! He runs bible study groups. He must be a great guy.
He suffers from multiple physical and psychological disorders (depression, memory loss, heart problems). The fact that he can keep coaching at such a high level is just a testament to his character and fortitude.
IE...Dude wins a lot of games so people will create any narrative to keep him around, no matter what a POS he is.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:26 PM ^
Urban Meyer is such a lowlife.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:48 PM ^
What’s troubling about sensationalized articles like this is the use of general, expansive language that, while seemingly directed at bringing attention to a SPECIFIC (arguably) bad actor, ie, Urban Meyer, the broad language actually ends up diluting the allegations to ALL of college football which then results in little if anything actually being done to solve it.
For example, the authors state, “At the elite level...college football is broken.” No - elite college football generally is NOT broken. Elite college football is broken at CERTAIN schools, and within CERTAIN conferences where in others it operates in a much more healthy and supportive environment for the athletes. Moreover, it should state, “Critics argue that college football tends to be ultimately destructive to the athletes UNDER SPECIFIC PROGRAMS directed by specific bad acting coaches.”
Dont want to name names, don’t. Making the more specific language above may trigger certain coaches (ahem, Urban Meyer?) to threaten suit. Fine. Go for it. Let’s unpack thru discovery all the dirty little secrets. Let’s incentivize injured players to come out of the shadows, hidden records to be unsealed and let’s make a show of the case. No, pieces of excrement like Meyer may puff and bluster but in the end, the risk of exposure far outweighs any slight reward they may feel in trying to defend against a story like this and they won’t sue.
Yes, college football needs to be cleaned up but articles like this with its overly general language casting the entire field of college coaching as corrupt and destructive because of players like Hernandez created by coaches like Meyer, is just flat out wrong. Put the blame squarely where it should go.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:31 AM ^
Yeah, I disagree. While there is a range of misbehavior, the college football system as overseen by the NCAA is broken. This happens at more places than you might think and is enabled by incompetent oversight by the NCAA. The system also dehumanizes kids by limiting the scope in which they are valued. We don't want to help kids achieve what's best for them when it comes to big time football, we want them to help our school win and turn more profit to the point where even their degree revolves around that end goal. Student athletes are limited to those that play sports that only exist in the orbit of mostly football and sometimes basketball.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:52 AM ^
Agree, except for one fine point. The NCAA oversight is not incompetent. It is intensional and corrupt. It is an effective marketing wing to maintain the myth of the student athlete in revenue sports. There are exceptions, but these are driven by schools and individuals. The system itself is built to profit a small subset of individuals.
October 15th, 2018 at 3:21 AM ^
It's easier for those who aren't college sports fans, and especially larger cities and their media outlet to self-righteously blame everything on college football and basketball and the fame and money involved.
Those who don't care for sports resent "jocks" and the attention they receive, and think "all that money" should be spent on libraries instead of glorified gym teachers and football stadiums, as though it were all a zero-sum game.
Meanwhile fans of professional sports (and frankly any kind of entertainment) are glad to point a finger at anything elsewhere that smacks of corruption because it takes the heat off them and makes them feel better more righteous,
Are celebrities of all kinds (including athletes, even college athletes) treated differently from the rest of us? Yes. Will shutting down college football do anything to stop the coddled, entitled mentality of celebrities and the rich (and especially rich celebrities)? No.
October 15th, 2018 at 3:21 AM ^
It's easier for those who aren't college sports fans, and especially larger cities and their media outlet to self-righteously blame everything on college football and basketball and the fame and money involved.
Those who don't care for sports resent "jocks" and the attention they receive, and think "all that money" should be spent on libraries instead of glorified gym teachers and football stadiums, as though it were all a zero-sum game.
Meanwhile fans of professional sports (and frankly any kind of entertainment) are glad to point a finger at anything elsewhere that smacks of corruption because it takes the heat off them and makes them feel better more righteous,
Are celebrities of all kinds (including athletes, even college athletes) treated differently from the rest of us? Yes. Will shutting down college football do anything to stop the coddled, entitled mentality of celebrities and the rich (and especially rich celebrities)? No.
October 14th, 2018 at 11:51 PM ^
"In Gainesville, Hernandez took rudimentary reading and writing courses at a community college, courses that may have helped him but did not count for college credit."
This part of the article most infuriates me. If we're not going to pay the kids, we can at least educate them and help them earn a legitimate degree. If anyone needed more evidence that Urban Shit-turd-liar doesn't care about the kids, will say and do anything, and use kids and spit them out merely to reward himself, here it is.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:12 AM ^
Eh, maybe your example is bad - if OSU really wanted to spit him out it wouldn't have sent him to non-credit classes. That actually sounds like they really wanted to help him!
October 15th, 2018 at 1:12 AM ^
They (we're talking Fla--I don't know about OSU) would if they wanted to keep the kid eligible. They stuck him at a CC taking remedial classes, which is fine, but he was enrolled at Fla and suited up for Florida's football team, all the while his CC credits didn't count toward his degree. So they weren't helping him earn a degree at all, just keeping him eligible to play. He should not have been there. He should have been at E. Mississippi Community College until he could handle Fla academically.
"But his hands were good and he could run fast!" --Urban Meyer
October 15th, 2018 at 3:56 AM ^
Actually, as the article mentioned several times, that was a kid who should have stayed in high school and enrolled in the fall, or even taken a gap year. He really needed to grow up.
It does call into question the whole early enrollment game - some kids can probably handle it, but most could do with a little more home cooking and socializing before taking on college and the equivalent of a full-time job like intercollegiate sports. Meyer sells kids on a chance to play early and "the best will play" to get the four and five stars, who are in a hurry to get to the NFL payday, and the younger and dumber and hungrier they, are the better.
But it's also the fault that in our political discussions in America, we have narrowed the definition of the real function of high schools and education. Whereas at one time it was to provide some basic cognitive skills but more importantly, socialization in a civilized society; nowadays they are looked at as functioning for the purposes of test-taking and a step on the employment path, so that employers have to do as little training as necessary.
October 15th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
I don't think this is specific to UF or Meyer. In fact, it's probably something you could observe at every school playing major college football.
Football players are recruited for football reasons and academic concerns are primarily approached from a 'how do we get this to comply with all the regulations' point of view if the athlete in question could be an academic problem. How many recruits did we have over the years where it wasn't clear if they'd 'qualify' in the end. What do people imagine that means? That they're 4.0 GPA students with some technicalities in the way?
October 15th, 2018 at 12:26 AM ^
Outside Columbus, anyone who has followed Meyer's Florida history and the handling of Zach Smith while he was there, now understands his behavior this summer. And it wasn't about following protocol or doing the right thing.
When asked directly whether he had any regrets about his handling of Hernandez, he basically gave the same answer he did when asked in a August press conference about his handling of Smith and allegations that he beat his wife. He thought about it for awhile and then basically regretted that it was a bad situation for all concerned.
He never willingly took responsibility in either case for his role in Hernandez recruitment, the time he spent under his coaching or supervising Smith. In fact, he only did so when accountability was publicly sought. And why, because winning was everything to him, something he is very good at, no doubt.
October 15th, 2018 at 12:46 AM ^
There was a reporter for the Orlando sentinel that would try to hold Meyer accountable, and there is a video somewhere where Meyer goes apeshit because of it. I remember seeing it and I admired this reporter .
October 15th, 2018 at 4:24 AM ^
Sociopaths usually have just one regret / fear - getting caught.
October 15th, 2018 at 9:17 AM ^
And psychopaths don’t get anxious or fearful. But they can get angry.