Urban Meyer Is From My Hometown--So What

        


          In my hometown of Ashtabula, Ohio there are now three signs posted in various areas on main roads as you enter into city limits from the east, from the west and from the south. They announce that Urban Meyer was born here. Urban Meyer is a college football coach and by college football standards, a very good one. He became well known to college football fans in the last half dozen years in large part by his winning two National Championships as the head coach of the Florida Gators between 2005 and 2010. Last year, in a sorta homecoming, he became coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes and in that first year they did not lose a game (Although they were Bowl ineligible due to NCAA Violations and thus didn't get to play in a big finale.) He's probably the hottest football coach in the land.

          In terms of Division 1 A Football Programs, Urban Meyer's winning percentage ranks first out of all active coaches. He has coached at Bowling Green St, Utah, University of Florida and now Ohio State and has had major success at each program, not to mention becoming a multi-millionaire in the process.Ok. So he is a really good football coach at the collegiate level and a wealthy individual. I think we can all agree on that.

          But does this fact really give credence to having his name being erected as representative product of the pride of Ashtabula? I have my doubts. Is this what Ashtabula is trying to extol as some sorta demented claim to fame? And do you really need three signs so as to not miss a single person entering into 'Urban' territory and have them miss out on the idea that they are in the glorious proximity of where once Urban Meyer might have walked down the street?

          Though of course he only lived in Ashtabula until college and never moved back he has made special appearances in Ashtabula over the years helping out local sports organizations and their ilk.
From what I can gather he has donated his time and money and influence and is prolly not a bad guy.

          But c'mon. HE IS A FOOTBALL COACH.

          So he was born in Ashtabula and left as a teenager. If we take even a cursory glance at the History of Ashtabula we can find great people who maybe weren't born in Ashtabula but spent the majority of their lives there and whose actions are deserving of serious public recognition. Surely if Urban Meyer has three signs posted up than some one like William Hubbard, who was a member of the Ashtabula County Anti-Slave Society, and who ran a house on the underground railroad to help free slaves in the times before the Civil War should have just as many or more. Its unknown precisely how many slaves he helped but his house was very close to Lake Erie and so he would house them until they could escape across the lake and into Canada.

         One surviving record indicates there were 39 slaves hiding out in his basement and hay loft at one time. To them the place became known as 'Mother's Hubbard's Cupboard'.

         To Ashtabula's credit, the old Hubbard House still stands and is now a museum open in the summer and is actually cool as hell if you're history nerd like myself.(Too bad its only open in the Summer.)

         I'm not bashing Urban Meyer or demanding that his shiny aluminum signs be torn down or defaced but it would be nice if the leaders of Ashtabula, whoever they may be nowadays, exercised a little perspective.

         In a place whose downtown is filled with abandoned buildings, whose unemployment runs rampant, where only shreds of community involvement still exist, (outside the sports community) where old school building get torn down and where the only thing being built are 'Family Dollar' stores, it would be nice for them to understand this basic truth: You have to be extremely intelligent to be a great football coach but dumb enough to think it matters.