Meyer's toughest challenge: Changing

Now comes the hard part.

Less than a day after stepping down as Florida football coach for health reasons, Urban Meyer changed his mind. He is now only taking an indefinite leave of absence. Gainesville is now officially the flip-flop coaching capital of the world. And, no, he isn't going to the Orlando Magic.

The jokes will pass.

So will Friday's Sugar Bowl against Cincinnati, in what amounts to Meyer's coaching send-off. Tough opponent, Cincinnati. Meyer will face a tougher one after that.

How does he stop being himself?

How does he stop being relentless?

How does he learn to stop driving so fast, so hard, aboard that barreling freight train in Gainesville, to feed the monster without being consumed by it?

We wonder.

At 45, how does Urban Meyer step off the express elevator that took him to the top of college football ... and to the emergency room with a numb left arm and chest pains after the SEC title game loss to Alabama - the kind of chest pains that have been with him on and off for four years, but for all of this season? Meyer mentioned Wake Forest basketball coach Skip Prosser, who died in his office in July 2007 at age 56. Alarm bells sounded.

But can Urban de-Urbanize?

"That's something I've got to figure out," Meyer said.

Or why come back?

Meyer sat in a hotel ballroom Sunday shortly after arriving in New Orleans with his team. The four most important reasons for him to figure it out sat in the third row - Meyer's wife, Shelley, his daughters, Nicole and Gigi, and his son, Nathan.

"To put them in jeopardy," the coach said. "I will not do that."

There are no jokes when stress and work drive a loving husband and father of three onto a hospital table and possibly damage his heart. That loss to Alabama, that was stress, too. Wonder if we'd even be here if the Gators had won.

No matter. On Christmas night, Meyer saw it all in his family's eyes. So, Saturday he told his players he was leaving Florida. There were tears everywhere. But Sunday, before the plane to Louisiana, just like that, he saw his Gators practice, their pride, and it changed everything. "It was the love that I have for those players," Meyer said.

His retirement didn't even last a day.

Meyer expects to be back for the 2010 season.

"I do, in my gut, believe that," he said.

Are you worried yet?

Florida wants him back, but there's no timetable. Meyer's health is what matters.

"Obviously there's a chance it won't happen," Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said. "But at the end of the day, we might wind end up with Urban Meyer. The Urban Meyers of the world are hard to come by."

But Urban Meyer's world has to change.

Something has to give. Those around Meyer knew it, and now he does, too. Maybe those chest pains were a blessing.

Foley has seen the head coach's 100-hour work weeks, the stress, weight falling off him, but who could stop him? "It's Urban Meyer, folks," Foley said. "It's who he is."

He can't be that Urban anymore.

Shelley Meyer has watched her husband rise to nearly great heights in just nine years as a head coach, no detail too small, always go, go, go. But there was a price. The bill has come due. "He has to learn," Shelley Meyer said.

She said it goes beyond the physical.

"I really wish for him to enjoy his kids and do stuff with us as a family. That's what he's been feeling guilty about and part of his misery."

Misery.

It's a slightly sad story, too common with driven men in a driven profession. Urban Meyer has to figure out men such as Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno, both old enough to be his father, but who went on and on without burning down or out. Or learn from Steve Spurrier, who has rings and trophies, but a beach house and a golf game, too.

Meyer said, "I think what I have to learn is you can't just accept ... you've got to be able to ... 'delegate' might be the right word, that you have to be able to delegate and you have to function. I've lived a nine-year (head) coaching career - I'd say a 30-year coaching career in nine years, and I can't do that."

But how does he flip the OFF switch? Does he even have one?

"So we'll see what he does," Shelley Meyer said. "Now that he's had these signs, as we call them, I think he'll make a really good attempt to (change). We've got to see how he handles his leisure time. I've never seen him have leisure time. That's like an oxymoron."

Urban Meyer has to learn how not to be Urban Meyer.

And that won't be easy.