At Ohio State Alumni Club banquet, Heisman winner Eddie George says Urban Meyer was 'only guy' to save OSU
By
Doug Lesmerises, Northeast Ohio Media Group
October 29, 2013
CLEVELAND, Ohio – The OSU Alumni Club of Greater Cleveland’s annual football appreciation banquet and the Ohio State football team developed a close relationship over half a century of celebrating the Buckeyes. It wasn’t too long ago that both, the banquet and the program, were in trouble.
Tuesday night, 300 fans turned out for an event at Windows on the River that featured two Heisman Trophy winners in Archie Griffin and Eddie George, and another guest, legendary OSU lineman John Hicks, who finished second. While they were there, former stars and fans could talk about an undefeated OSU team and the 20-game winning streak to start Urban Meyer’s tenure with the Buckeyes.
So it all worked out. Not that it was easy.
Eddie George, left, and Archie Griffin sign autographs for fans at the OSU Alumni Club of Greater Cleveland football appreciation banquet on Tuesday night.Doug Lesmerises, cleveland.com
“Of course you worried about the program,” George said of the time that followed Jim Tressel’s forced resignation over NCAA violations and the 6-7 season in 2011 under interim coach Luke Fickell. “When you have a guy like Tressel that had done so much for the university, it concerns you. To be the head coach at Ohio State is being the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. So it’s a complex business. It’s not just about X’s and O’s and inspiring your team on Saturday. It’s about engaging and fundraising and knowing donors and recruiting and staying ahead of the curve and having a system in place that is consistent through your entire staff.
“There are so many complex parts to this that it takes a strong person to do that. And Tressel fit that for 10 years. So you have got to find somebody that can come in there and seamlessly understand that and continue to have a CEO mindset, and I think Urban was the perfect guy for that.
“I think he was the only guy who could come into Ohio State and continue that success. Anybody else would have had a difficult time transitioning and understanding that. No disrespect to Luke Fickell at all, I think he’s a tremendous coach, tremendous upside, a lot of potential. But it showed you youth and inexperience can swallow you up.”
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