Is Urban Meyer’s coaching career over, or will he follow the Jimmy Johnson path?

… confession not good for the soul

When a person reaches the pinnacle of his or her profession, he expects to receive the benefit of the doubt. For a college coach who has won 84 percent (177-31) of his games overall, 90 percent (73-8) in his current job, that should occur.

Unless he makes a major mistake, which is what has happened with Ohio State football Coach Urban Meyer. With three national titles under his belt, and now in his 50s with a team that could compete for the 2018 national championship while earning about seven million dollars this year, life should be great for Meyer.

Instead, his Buckeyes started their preseason camp without their leader in their midst, serving an administrative suspension. Things are so bad for Meyer right now that he had to resort to a Sylvia Plath confessional response, albeit not a poetic one. Meyer instead wrote a note to Ohio State fans on Twitter with an acknowledgement that he had lied last month when he said that he did not know about an assistant coach’s domestic abuse charges in 2015.

In his own words …

In short, Meyer admitted that he knew that his wide receivers coach, Zach Smith, had abused his wife, Courtney, three years ago despite denying it at the Big Ten Media Days on July 24. [He fired Smith in July after a protection from abuse order from his former wife became public.]

Meyer began his confession by telling about how the events of this past week have affected him. “Over the past several days, I have been portrayed as being indifferent to domestic violence and as someone who did not take appropriate action when warranted. While over three decades of coaching I have learned to ignore how others define me, I do feel it necessary to share the truth with the Buckeye family,” he wrote on Twitter.

Then he confesses — somewhat. “The power of what I say and how I say it, especially regarding sensitive and serious domestic issues, has never been more evident than now. My words, whether in a reply to a reporter’s question or in addressing a personnel issue, must be clear, compassionate and most of all, completely accurate. Unfortunately, at Big Ten Media Days on July 24 I failed on many of these fronts. My intention was not to say anything inaccurate or misleading. However I was not adequately prepared to discuss these sensitive personnel issues with the media and I apologize for the way I handled those questions.”

Meyer was doing well until he wrote that last sentence. It was not exactly an “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” statement, but he was defensive throughout, and his approach in recent days appears to be one in which he is throwing Ohio State, and his athletic director, under the bus.

“Here is the truth: While at the University of Florida, and now at The Ohio State University, I have always followed proper reporting protocols and procedures when I have learned of an incident involving a student-athlete, coach or member of our staff by elevating the issues to the proper channels,” his Twitter confession noted. “And, I did so regarding the Zach Smith incident in 2015. I take that responsibility very seriously and any suggestion to the contrary is simply false.”

So, what actually happened?

The problem centers around his assistant coach, Zach Smith, who has been arrested for domestic abuse, though never charged, in the past nine years. A graduate assistant coach for Meyer at Florida in 2009, he was arrested for striking his pregnant wife, something that Meyer acknowledges he knew about at that time.

The evidence indicates that police came to the Smith residence(s) on at least nine occasions, but it continued into 2015 when he was an assistant to Meyer at Ohio State, when the charges led to a divorce.

Columnist Dan Wetzel writes this about the Smith situation. “Why Meyer chose to be so loyal to an assistant coach is unknown, but it’s a point of endless speculation here in Columbus,” he wrote for Yahoo Sports. “The connection to [former legendary Ohio State coach and Smith grandfather] Earle Bruce, who passed away in April, is an obvious one. Even then, such loyalty was foolish and reckless. A position on the Buckeyes’ staff is coveted. Meyer could have picked from thousands of other talented coaches who haven’t been repeatedly accused of beating and stalking women.

“Instead he stuck with Smith, seeing a reclamation project where there was only trouble brewing. He could have dropped him in 2009. He could have not promoted him at UF. He could have not hired him at Ohio State in the first place, let alone kept him around when further allegations reached, at the very least, his wife and the wives of other staffers, if not himself.”

Bruce personal ties a key

Wetzel ties together the relationship between Meyer, Earle Bruce, Bruce’s daughter, who is Smith’s mother, and Smith himself. “In 1986, Bruce gave Meyer his first big break in coaching by hiring him as a graduate assistant at Ohio State. For two years Meyer not only learned to coach but developed a powerful relationship with Bruce. He met Smith when Smith was just a kid and eventually Smith was a walk-on wide receiver for Meyer at Bowling Green,” he wrote. Then, “In 2009, at the age of 24, [Zach Smith] was charged with felony assault for abusing his then-pregnant wife, Courtney. She later dropped the charges, in part, she said, because Earle Bruce told her it would cost Zach his career. Meyer decided to keep Smith on staff and even eventually promote him” despite the risks to his career, and more importantly, to his wife and children, who have been living in fear and trepidation from their husband and father.

In 2009, Zach’s mother and his grandfather drove to Florida to talk Courtney into withdrawing the criminal complaint against the young coach. She eventually agreed, much to her chagrin. Life did not improve; the abuse only continued.

Meyer could simply have taken the safe route and not hire Smith at Ohio State, but that may have severed his ties and destroyed his gratitude to his ultimate mentor. By doing so, he hurt a young woman and her children, but may have also inadvertently subterfuged his own career.

Will probably be fired

A committee of trustees, alumni, administrators and others at OSU is investigating the situation, and the reality is that Meyer’s career appears to have ended. If they decide to allow him to continue while another investigation of a decades-old sexual abuse case of a physician there is taking place, the national outrage will be incredible. Enablers, whether they be the late Penn State Coach Joe Paterno, who was fired for not reporting his former assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, of child abuse, or those in the Catholic Church, are being criticized for the damage they have done to so many people.

Consequently, Ohio State is between a rock and the ocean, in danger of being swept away with another scandal. Smith has admitted that the OSU athletic director called him back from a recruiting trip in 2015 when he learned of the domestic abuse charges. So, the university knew, and yet did nothing.

As Wetzel concludes, “Every day Meyer kept Smith employed, he was putting his own legendary career and reputation at risk, a time bomb of his own making ticking away. Finally, this week, it all blew up.”

To the NFL?

If Meyer is released at OSU, will he ever be given a chance to coach again? The route for those coaches who have run afoul of norms in college athletics has been to go pro. That is what Jimmy Johnson did decades ago, moving to the Dallas Cowboys and distinguishing himself by winning a couple of Super Bowls.

However, there is a difference in Meyer’s situation in 2018 and that of Johnson in the late 1980s. First, Johnson was not involved any abuse controversies. He was just considered shady in recruiting players and handling them, though he won a national title at Miami. In the pros, Johnson did not have to worry about character issues, which dogged him in college.

However, the Meyer situation has to be placed in context of the times. The NFL was terribly embarrassed with the abuse actions of former Ravens running back Ray Rice, who was caught abusing his wife on a video a few years ago. It has instituted mandatory programs for athletes to go through to avoid such a debacle again. In addition, the whole situation with Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein and media personalities, including that of the president of the United States, in sexual abuse situations has made this toxic.

That may be getting ahead of the current story, but his career, at just 54, may be in serious jeopardy. That is unfortunate because he is a tremendous coach, but today, coaches are being held to a higher standard than they were a few decades ago.