Tim Tebow: It’s time for Gators to embrace Urban Meyer | Commentary
Urban Meyer had on his University of Florida gear and sat with Tim Tebow inside a UF skybox and rooted loudly and proudly for his former program to beat the Miami Hurricanes during the season opener in Orlando.
Meyer sat in UF athletics director Scott Stricklin’s suite that night, and it is believed to be the first time since Meyer left UF in a shroud of controversy and consternation nearly a decade ago that he had been publicly and officially welcomed back into UF’s program.
“We have a choice," Tebow added. "We can look at it like he left for another school or we can look at it like, ‘Hey, he might have only been here a few years, but he gave Florida two national championships and that’s pretty cool, too.' He did a lot for Florida, and we should be grateful for that.”
Both Steve Spurrier and Emmitt Smith have told me the same thing.
“How many coaches can say that they have two national championships at the University of Florida?” Smith told me in January. “Sometimes, you have to get over yourselves with how it [Meyer’s UF tenure] ended. The man did what he needed to do while he was there … and we should be proud of that. He won us two national championships; Billy Donovan did the same thing. So why not honor these guys for what they contributed during the time they were there? Urban Meyer should be welcomed back because of what he was able to accomplish.”