|
Ohio State's culture of cover-up helped save Urban Meyer's job
By Dan Wetzel
[with video] On the morning of Aug. 1, a bombshell story broke suggesting that Urban Meyer had lied about not knowing of a 2015 domestic abuse allegation against former Ohio State assistant coach Zach Smith. Minutes later, Meyer met with football staffer Brian Voltolini. Their first inclination, per the school’s investigation, was to figure out how to delete text messages from Meyer’s phone. In other words, cover things up. “Specifically,” the report reads, “how to adjust the settings on Meyer’s phone so that text messages older than one year would be deleted.” And, indeed, when investigators eventually got a hold of Meyer’s phone, all text messages over a year old had been wiped clean. What Meyer had or had not been texting, specifically with his wife, Shelley Meyer, is unknown. The investigation labeled that “concerning.” You think? Even more concerning is that the mindset at Ohio State didn’t change from the start to the conclusion of this scandal. Its inclination remained to conceal and protect, or at the very least, delay the truth from emerging. On Wednesday night, Ohio State held a news conference to announce the suspensions of Meyer (three games) and athletic director Gene Smith (two weeks without pay) for improperly handling the Smith case. Prior to the news conference, the school declined to release the “Independent Investigation Summary of Findings” to the media. It did so hours later. In doing so, president Michael Drake, Gene Smith and Urban Meyer himself were not subject to questioning about the most problematic and pertinent discoveries in the case. Such as, why did Meyer want to delete text messages rather than preserve evidence that might exonerate him? The school explained to reporters on hand the length of the report made it too much to consume quickly prior to the news conference. Except the report is 23 easy-to-read pages. It was a cover-up of the cover-up, you could say. Whether Meyer should have been fired, suspended or apologized to hardly matters at this point. That decision has been made. By choosing three games, the university pleased no one – most notably Meyer, who looked angry that he got sat in a corner for any period of time. He’s lucky the school shielded him by not releasing the report before the news conference. He can now shift to “football-only” news conferences, claim everything has already been addressed and perhaps sit down for a single, friendly television interview that he can filibuster through. Give Ohio State this much, it’s effective PR work. Make no mistake though, the actions of the coach and the school that emerge from the report show a disturbing pattern of dishonesty. The culture of deceitfulness is so prevalent, and centered on Meyer, that everyone else has to find ways to hide it, ignore it or explain it. Consider how in 2015, when Gene Smith learned that Courtney Smith was alleging she had been physically abused by Zach Smith. Gene Smith told Urban Meyer about it and the two met, repeatedly to discuss it. They agreed to let law enforcement conduct its investigation rather than turn it over to compliance as Ohio State says they were required. When no charges were brought, it all fell by the wayside. This is why they were suspended. The problem is when Gene Smith and Meyer were meeting about Zach Smith, Meyer knew this wasn’t the first time Zach had been accused of domestic violence. In 2009, while working for Meyer at the University of Florida, Zach was arrested for assaulting Courtney. Charges were eventually dropped but this is certainly an important detail to share. Except Meyer didn’t share it with Gene Smith. Not when he hired Zach Smith in 2012 and, more incredibly, not when the two were discussing what to do with Zach Smith in 2015. This should have been one of the first things mentioned … “Gene, you should know …”
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.