OSU: Herman accompanied Zach Smith to strip club

Ohio State on Tuesday confirmed that former offensive coordinator Tom Herman was the assistant coach who accompanied former Buckeyes receivers coach Zach Smith to a Florida strip club in 2014.

University spokesman Chris Davey told The Dispatch that Herman, now the head coach at Texas, is the coach mentioned but unnamed in the 23-page final report of the investigation into football coach Urban Meyer’s handling of domestic abuse accusations against Smith.

Earlier Tuesday, Ohio State released records of the transactions at the strip club among a batch of material produced by the investigation, which resulted in suspensions for Meyer and athletic director Gene Smith.

The Aug. 22 report said Zach Smith ran up “a significant bill” at a Miami-area strip club in May 2014, spending some $600 of his money. The report said that one or more high school coaches accompanied Smith to the club.

Five transactions were listed among the documents that OSU released on Tuesday — four from Miami Gardens Square One, Inc. totaling $592.50 and one from J.W. Lee, Inc. for $67. Miami Gardens Square One operates Tootsie’s Cabaret. J.W. Lee operates Scarlett’s Cabaret.

Smith did not seek reimbursement on his expense form for those visits, and Herman’s name is not mentioned in the expense-report documents. Herman, though, had been rumored to be the OSU coach who was with Smith at the club.

Ohio State could face an inquiry from the NCAA if either of its assistants paid for the high school coach or coaches who also were present.

Also included in the document release was an anonymous email claiming that Zach Smith left a rehabilitation facility after only four days of what was to be at least a 10-day stay.

The email, sent Aug. 19, said that Smith was at the Sibcy House at Linder Center of Hope in Mason in the summer of 2015 because of multiple substance abuse addictions and/or stimulant overuse or misuse, and also to determine or rule out a sex addiction.

Patients are required to stay for 10 days before a determination is made as to whether they are to remain for up to 28 additional days.

“It was evident to me that he had no intention of completing the program or even taking it seriously,” the anonymous emailer wrote. “He remarked the first day that he was sure this would soon gonna (sic) hit the media.”

The writer said that he sent the email “because it didn’t make sense to me why a school like Ohio State would keep him as a coach if he had all these domestic violence issues, didn’t complete his rehab and the other things he reportedly did the past several years.”

Smith was fired as wide receivers coach on July 23.

Ohio State also included the Gainesville, Florida, police report from the 2009 incident in which Zach Smith’s thenwife, Courtney, alleges that he grabbed her by her shirt and threw her into the bedroom wall while she was pregnant.

The final report said that Ohio State’s background check on Smith before his 2011 hiring “did not call for or return arrest information, and Zach Smith’s arrest in 2009 was therefore unknown to others (besides Urban Meyer) at OSU at the time he was hired.”

Davey said that his understanding is that Ohio State’s background check covered any convictions. Smith was arrested but not prosecuted.