Ohio State football coach Urban Meyer told Yahoo! Sports he has a congenital cyst in his brain.
“Over the last few years, I’ve felt better and, with the help of my doctors, learned to manage it and monitor it with medication,” Meyer said in a phone interview. “I’m optimistic that this time won’t be any different.”
His doctor explained to Yahoo! the treatment:
“The past four years, we’ve been working closely with coach Meyer to monitor and manage the symptoms that have risen from his enlarged congenital arachnoid cyst,” said Dr. Andrew Thomas, Meyer’s personal physician and the chief clinical officer at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. “This includes aggressive headaches, which have particularly flared up the past two years.”
There has been speculation about whether Meyer will continue coaching the Buckeyes following a season that started with a scandal.
This is not the first time Meyer has discussed health issues. He stepped down as head coach at Florida in 2009, citing chest pains.
“There was no heart damage,” Meyer told The New York Times then, referring to a night he was hospitalized. “But I didn’t want there to be a bad day where there were three kids sitting around wondering what to do next. It was the pattern of what I was doing and how I was doing it. It was self-destructive.”
This season has been self-destructive. Meyer and Ohio State found themselves in the middle of a scandal over domestic abuse allegations against then-tight ends coach Zach Smith.
Smith was fired and Meyer subsequently suspended for three games by the school for his prior knowledge of the incidents.
“I’m fully aware that I’m ultimately responsible for this situation that has harmed the university as a whole and our department of athletics and our football program,” Meyer said after the suspension.”I want to apologize to Buckeye nation. I followed my heart, not my head, and I fell short pursuing information because at each juncture I gave Zach Smith the benefit of the doubt.”
Meyer had denied knowledge of the allegations against Smith prior to admitting he was aware of them.
