Ohio State trustee resigns, calls Meyer’s penalty too light

COLUMBUS, OHIO » 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 Thursday 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 following 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 on 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 on Thursday he felt Meyer hadn’t demonstrated “high-integrity behavior” and that the findings of the investigation “raisedan

issue of standards, values — not how many games someone should be suspended for.”

Thefindings included that Meyer should have told university officials about domes-

tic 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.