It was Good Friday 2015. We'd just finished breakfast at Salem's Diner in Homewood, his favorite early morning hangout, when Mike Slive's phone rang. The caller ID said Columbus, Ohio, but didn't include a name. Slive said, "I'm intrigued."
He answered, and the voice on the phone belonged to Urban Meyer. The coach was calling to apologize to the commish for the way Meyer had left Florida and the SEC years before.
Actually, Meyer had been writing a letter of apology to Slive and thought, hey, why not pick up the phone? It was a touching show of humility from an elite coach coming off a national title at Ohio State, a telling sign of respect for the most powerful man in college sports.
Best of all, the call wasn't motivated by sympathy. Meyer didn't know at the time that Slive was in the middle of a brutal battle with prostate cancer.