ABOVE THE LINE – Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season – Ohio State Buckeyes
10/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 14, 2015
I had one of the most remarkable and exhilarating years of my life in 2014. What made it special was not just the way it ended, raising the championship trophy as confetti fell all over AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, but the journey we took and the challenges we overcame along the way. There can’t be change without challenge, or growth without discomfort. After we lost three of four games and lost one star quarterback and then another, among other key players, most of the college football world wrote us off. But it was when we were confronted with our most challenging events that we did our best work and produced our greatest responses. That was when our players and staff truly showed how our culture could overcome adversity. They refused to quit. They pushed through pain and discouragement and hardship. They embraced the brotherhood of trust and kept at it for one another, and they achieved an unforgettable outcome.
— Urban Meyer in Above the Line
For over a decade, Urban Meyer has established himself as one of the elite coaches in the annals of his sport, with three national championships and a cumulative record of 142 wins and only 26 losses. But sheer statistics are not the measure of his true accomplishment, nor do they speak to his own extraordinary journey.
In Above the Line: Lessons in Leadership and Life from a Championship Season (Penguin Press; October 27, 2015), Meyer shares the heart of what he knows about how to instill core values in teams and lead them to great outcomes.
In this his first book, Meyer speaks candidly about the hard won lessons of his own life and career. He discusses why he stepped back from the game at the close of the 2010 season and how doing so gave him a renewed sense of purpose and a new commitment to life balance when he returned to the gridiron in 2012 as the head football coach at Ohio State.
Ohio State’s historic 2014 season was Urban Meyer’s master class in leadership. The world knows how the story ended: with the Buckeyes capturing the inaugural College Football Playoff Championship with a 42–20 victory over Oregon. The win came despite a brutal early-season loss, a third-string quarterback at the helm, and infinitely worse, the tragic death of a teammate. But this team’s resilience was no accident. In Above the Line, Urban Meyer reveals OSU’s groundbreaking game plan—the game plan he followed every day in the Buckeyes’ 2014 season—for creating a culture of success.
Meyer firmly believes that though we can’t often control events we can always control our response. The people who consistently produce exceptional results are those who have trained themselves to perform intentionally, on purpose, and skillfully when it matters. Meyer explains, step by step, how to cultivate what he calls an “Above the Line” response to the challenges we face every day.
From building trust to creating unit cohesion to developing leadership mindsets within an organization, Meyer distills what experience and key mentors have taught him into practical, actionable advice for everyone, in any position. Packed with object lessons from the Buckeyes’ storied season, Above the Line offers wisdom and inspiration for taking control and turning setbacks into victories.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Urban Meyer is the head football coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. In 2014, he led the Buckeyes to their first Big Ten Conference title under his tenure as well as the program’s eighth national championship. Meyer served as the head coach of the Bowling Green Falcons from 2001 to 2002, the Utah Utes from 2003 to 2004, and the Florida Gators from 2005 to 2010. He is one of only two coaches to win a National Championship at two different schools. Wayne Coffey, an award-winning sportswriter, is the author of three New York Times bestsellers, including The Closer (with Mariano Rivera) and Wherever I Wind Up (with R. A. Dickey).
