Former Ohio State and Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Urban Meyer appeared on The Lou Holtz Show this week and shared his thoughts on the world of college football with former coach Lou Holtz.
He also offered up his answer on how to fix what’s wrong with America.
After providing his thoughts on NIL (“it’s cheating.“) and the transfer portal (“You can leave anytime you want.”), Holtz asked Meyer what he thought needed to happen for America to change its current culture.
“How do we change the culture of this country?” asked Holtz. “What are the things that we need to change to become outstanding?”
Well, I think as a leader, your job is to unite. In our lifetime, we’ve witnessed a lot of division. That’s one of the great skills that Lou Holtz had, Earle Bruce had, Woody Hayes had. Everybody had different styles, but at the end of the day, it’s to bring people together.
“What’s happened in the last decade in my lifetime, I’ve never witnessed this, is I’ve seen division to the point where, and I fall victim to it. I have very firm beliefs, and it’s hard for me to put my hands on some of these things. So that’s number one, is somehow, it used to be more centralist in politics. It’s not that way at all now. Now it’s extremism on both sides. And it’s like, I can’t disagree with more with fundamentally with some of the things I hear.
“However, the number one thing is, I think, what makes America great is meritocracy. Why I love this country so much. My mom was an immigrant from Germany. My father’s grandparents were from Ireland. I’ve coached, whether it be Utah, Florida, or Ohio State, completely different backgrounds. At the end of the day, I believe deep in my heart, if you work hard, you work really, really hard, great things will happen to you. If you don’t, it’s going to be a struggle. I don’t know why that’s so complicated.”
