Ohio State’s Search Should Only End in Urban Meyer’s Firing
With the search for answers officially and finally underway, we now wait for the findings of a six person committee investigating Urban Meyer and Ohio State's handling of the domestic violence accusations against former assistant coach Zach Smith.
If a blind eye was simply turned to what Courtney Smith had told the wife of the Buckeyes' head coach, did Meyer or anyone else "in the know" do anything illegal? No, but could do they have done more? Of course.
As an adult, passing the buck onto someone else, telling a superior and leaving it at that, is not good enough. There may not be a person more powerful in the entire state of Ohio than Urban Meyer. If he knew Zach Smith was physically and/or mentally abusing his wife, then he needed to be the person to make sure it stopped.
This six person committee will dig and will determine what Urban Meyer's role was and should have been, but the firing of Smith is evidence enough that Ohio State saw him unfit to be a "leader of men" based on his abusive past. Urban Meyer may not be legally guilty of anything, but his actions going back to 2009 scream enabler and for that, he should be fired.
What parent of a high school football player with multiple Division I offers would choose to send their son to play for Meyer? How does Meyer sit in anyone's living room again and say he will be that proverbial father figure, that parental influence to help an 18-year old boy become a man? He can't, not without his nose growing three to four times longer.