http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3584615
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/...name=katz_andy
Andy Katz wrote:To the mainstream fan who follows the sport Meyer's name may not resonate. To those in the coaching community there may be no one who means more to teaching the game who is still actively coaching.
"He's a tremendous teacher of the game, the way he breaks it down," said Minnesota head coach Tubby Smith, who spoke at Meyer's Coaching Academy last spring and has seen him speak a number of times and watches his videos.
"I'm glad his life was spared, he means a lot to a lot of people. His system, his style and as a God-fearing man, he understands and put things in perspective."
This is Meyer's 10th season at Northern State. Prior to that he spent 24 years at NAIA I David Lipscomb in Nashville. It was there that Smith first went to listen to him speak. Smith was a coach at Tulsa and drove to Nashville to hear him. He later would play Meyer's team at Kentucky in an exhibition and even today Smith will pop in a Meyer video. Smith scheduled Northern State in an exhibition at Minnesota on Nov. 6.
"He's so innovative and creative," Smith said. "He has a way of putting everything in writing that not many of us can. He can communicate. Most coaches understand the game, but he can communicate it. There's no magic to it. But he has an ability to get his teams to execute to their fullest. I'm very grateful to the pointers I've picked up from him."
Count Arizona State coach Herb Sendek as one of Meyer's strongest supporters. Sendek said that Meyer, a person he called a "tremendous human being," said "no one, no one has given back to the game more than Meyer through his camps, coaching clinics and videos."
"He's a true ambassador for the game from the grassroots level all the way up to the very top," Sendek said. "He shared more information and helped more coaches than anyone in our profession."
Sendek said he first met Meyer when Sendek was an assistant at Kentucky under Rick Pitino in the early 90s.
"He immediately embraced me, had me over to his house to talk basketball," Sendek said. When Sendek got the head coaching job at Miami of Ohio he said Meyer came to talk to him in Oxford, Ohio. Sendek said he and Meyer spent one day driving together to visit Dick Bennett at Wisconsin to "talk basketball."
"He's not somebody who coaches to wear an Armani suit or drive an expensive car or be on SportsCenter," Sendek said. "He's somebody who is truly passionate about the game. I have seen him on the bench with a handheld tape recorder like a reporter saying something that will help him later. His mind is constantly working. He'll take walks and talk into the recorder any idea he'll get. He shares what he knows. He coaches because he loves to coach."
The news of Meyer's accident spread throughout the coaching community across the country. Olson said the school has been inundated with requests for updates on his condition. And across the country coaches are remembering how they have been helped by Meyer in some way.
"He's a cult figure," said Colorado State coach Tim Miles, a former head coach at nearby North Dakota State. "I worked at Northern State for six years. Bob Olson [now the AD] was the coach then and told me that I was the post coach. So the first place I went to learn was to Nashville for coach Meyer's camp at David Lipscomb. His emphasis on fundamentals and teaching the ability to pass and catch, the guy is a walking library of information."
Meyer, entering his 10th season at the Division 2 school in Aberdeen, S.D., has 891 wins, 11 shy of tying former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bob Knight for the all-time win mark in men's NCAA basketball.
