Judge Meyer's action more than words
If AD also knew, it wasn’t solely coach’s duty to deal with assistant Smith.
COLUMBUS — Urban Meyer changed part of his story on Friday, Zach Smith told his side of the story in two interviews and it felt like the ground shifted as Ohio State investigates how Meyer and Ohio State handled having an accused domestic abuser on the football staff.
But none of this will hinge on words.
The future for Meyer and Ohio State will be determined by a final assessment of their actions, or inaction.
To be clear, nobody is getting fired for lying to the media. But Meyer, in a long statement released on his Twitter account, apologized for his words at Big Ten media days in Chicago last week, when he said he didn’t know anything about Smith’s domestic incidents in 2015. Meyer wrote that his words must be “clear, compassionate, and most of all, completely accurate,” especially when dealing with an issue as serious as domestic abuse.
“I failed on many of these fronts,” Meyer continued. “My intention was not to say anything inaccurate or misleading.”
He said he failed because for 10 days, what Meyer said last Tuesday shaped a large chunk of the discussion around this case.
He said he didn’t know about 2015. How could his wife, Shelley, know, but Meyer didn’t know? Was he lying about knowing? If he did know, did he report it? Did he have a duty to report what he knew based on Title IX statutes? Based on Ohio State’s Sexual Misconduct Policy?
You read the stories and heard the talk. Much of it is irrelevant now, if Meyer is to be believed. I believed him last week, because we didn’t have 100 percent proof he knew about 2015.
I’ll believe him again now. He knew. He reported it to Ohio State. His boss, athletic director Gene Smith, knew.
Why believe him again, when believing him the first time proved incorrect? Because Ohio State is investigating, and in the end, the words won’t matter. The actions will.
In the end, we won’t rely only on what was said. Ohio State’s investigation, and maybe the investigations of outside media, will check into records. It will talk to other people. There will be proof beyond what Urban Meyer and Zach Smith said Friday.
Then we’ll judge that, and judge the question that stands front and center as the other lines of discussion fell away with Meyer’s statement and Smith’s two interviews, one with 105.7 The Zone in Columbus and the other with ESPN.
Why did Ohio State keep Zach Smith on the football staff after 2015?
Is there anything else left to discuss?
Meyer and Gene Smith are now joined in needing to answer this question. That is a major change. If Meyer’s boss knew what he knew, it wasn’t incumbent only on Meyer to deal with Zach Smith. And Zach Smith said it was Gene Smith who called him home from a recruiting trip after the Powell police told Ohio State in the final week of October 2015 that Courtney Smith had said Zach had abused her.
The police investigated. No charges were filed. The case went away, Zach Smith said. And he stayed on staff.
Those facts are not in dispute.
So Ohio State’s investigation into the matter, with a six-person board overseeing it, must confirm that Meyer did report what he knew. It must confirm that Gene Smith and Meyer talked to Zach Smith and were diligent in checking into the facts at hand.
Then it may come down to the Ohio State Board of Trustees’ view of the decision to keep Zach Smith on staff.
It can be difficult at times for women who claim abuse to have charges filed. Ohio State’s own sexual misconduct policy acknowledges this by saying there don’t need to be charges or a conviction for employees to be required to report domestic abuse.
Some will view Zach Smith remaining on the staff after 2015 as Ohio State enabling an abuser. You can find that opinion easily.
Zach Smith claimed in his interviews that he never committed domestic abuse, but he admitted putting his hands on Courtney during aggressive, volatile confrontations. Those are troubling statements. He has presented his side. But Courtney Smith has produced photos that show bruises and marks. Again, Zach Smith was never charged. But the photos show a woman who suffered some form of violence.
Some will view Zach Smith remaining on staff as Ohio State correctly keeping an employee who never had charges filed against him. You can find that opinion easily.
He said he didn’t abuse her. The Buckeyes relied on the police, who didn’t press charges. If the police didn’t think he did something to warrant a charge, why should Ohio State believe he did something to warrant losing his job?
The Buckeyes didn’t fire Smith. They said they did look into it. What they say about it now has some effect. But the actions matter far more.
I asked Meyer four questions in Chicago last week after his initial news conference at the podium that was televised on the Big Ten Network. Meyer, who said Friday he was unprepared for questions about Zach Smith, was asked about football for seven minutes, before I said this:
“Urban, I know you answered some questions about this up at the podium. But I think we need to make sure there’s no ambiguity about the Zach Smith stuff. Can I ask you a couple clarifying things?”
I was hoping for the clarification from Meyer that he finally provided Friday. Then I asked the questions and got the answers, answers that have been reprinted for 10 days. At the time, Meyer said he didn’t know about 2015, so I didn’t ask why Smith wasn’t fired then.
But I did ask why Zach Smith was hired by Meyer at Ohio State in the first place, when Meyer admitted that he knew there had been an alleged domestic violence incident with Smith at Florida in 2009, when he worked for Meyer there.
“Whenever you get an accusation, contact your superior, wait to find out what happened, let the people do their jobs, then you let the legal course run its course,” Meyer said, talking about what he did in 2009. “Ask them because they’re experts. They came back to me. We found out what happened, according to both parties, according to everything. We met with them, there were no charges; everything was dropped; it was a very young couple, and I saw a very talented coach, and we moved forward.”
I would imagine Meyer’s answer about 2015 now would follow much of the same logic. Contact your superior. Let the legal situation run its course. No charges. Talented coach. Moved on.
But the Smiths weren’t so young in 2015. It wasn’t the first time in 2015 Meyer had heard these allegations. It doesn’t appear that Ohio State officials or Meyer talked to Courtney Smith in 2015.
Still, if the explanation is much the same, should the 2009 viewpoint explain the 2015 decision? There’s no guarantee that firing Smith would have changed any of his behavior toward Courtney Smith. Firing Zach Smith wouldn’t have automatically solved that problem. But it would have removed an allegedly violent person from the Ohio State football team.
“With what you knew at the time, and with what you know now,” I asked Meyer 10 days ago, “do you believe that possibly it was a mistake to have Zach Smith around your players for six years?”
“If I did,” Meyer said, “I would have made a change, or I would not have (hired Smith). Obviously, I made a decision that we were going to move forward with him on our staff.”
So really, Meyer has already answered the question that matters most, with his words and his actions. Was keeping Zach Smith a mistake? Answered. No. Because Ohio State kept him.
How that decision is judged now is what will determine what happens with Urban Meyer, Gene Smith and Ohio State.