Trustee resigns over Meyer case

An Ohio State University trustee who thought football coach Urban

Meyer deserved more than a three-game suspension and resigned from the board over it said that he was alone in advocating a stiffer penalty when trustees discussed the matter.

Former board chairman Jeffrey Wadsworth

resigned after Ohio State suspended Meyer and athletic director Gene

Smith last week after a two-week investigation, which found they had tolerated bad behavior for years from a now-fired assistant coach also accused of but not charged with domestic violence.

“Since I fundamentally disagree with the outcome it would be hypocritical of me to continue as a Trustee,” Wadsworth told board chairman Michael

Gasser in an Aug. 22 email, the day of the suspension, and released by the university Thursday.

Wadsworth told Gasser he heard enough in the meeting that day that he didn't want “to be a party, through endorsing today's decision or remaining on the Board, to implicitly or explicitly support current or future actions on such issues.”

Wadsworth told the New York Times that he felt Meyer had not demonstrated “high-integrity behavior” and that the findings of the investigation “raised an issue of standards, values — not how many games someone should be suspended for.”

The findings included that Meyer should have told university officials about domestic violence allegations made against the assistant in 2015 and that Meyer intentionally misled reporters about what he knew when asked about the matter this summer.

Wadsworth told the newspaper he left the Aug. 22 daylong meeting at lunch, learned of school president Michael

Drake's resulting decision after it was publicized, and resigned that night.