Meyer's Mistake

Columbus, Ohio is my home. I love it: the atmosphere, the people, the relatively flat roads, and the culture that The Ohio State University infuses into, not only the city, but the state too. That is why the news that broke this week was, at the very least, embarrassing and, at the very most, a black mark on Columbus.

Most of the headlines read, “Urban Meyer Fires Wide Receiver Coach, Zach Smith, After Smith Received Restraining Order.” My initial reaction was that of amazement because a high profile college football coach actually took proactive measures in dismissing an obvious distraction to the team and an even larger danger to society. Unfortunately that was my “initial” reaction.

In less than a few hours new reports were being released that Zach Smith, the Ohio State wide receivers coach, had an apparent history of run ins with the police, spurring from domestic violence allegations. It was even more disturbing to learn that Smith’s disturbances each occurred while he was working for Meyer.

Dating back to 2009, while Smith was married to his wife and coaching for Meyer at the University of Florida, police were called out to Smith’s home after Smith returned home with a female co-worker. It was alleged that when Smith returned home with the female co-worker, an argument ensued between him and his wife and allegedly Smith placed his hands on his wife. The domestic violence charges were eventually dropped.

Meyer, when questioned this week about the 2009 incident, stated that he was aware of “a” 2009 incident involving Smith, but was not aware of those details stated in the police record. Meyer was sure to mention that when he became aware of the ’09 incident that he immediately went to his boss and asked how to handle. It was determined that Smith was to seek counseling.

In 2015, while Smith was working for Meyer at Ohio State, the Powell, Ohio police were called to his ex- wife’s residence on two separate occasions. The first occasion was for a domestic violence claim and the second had to do with an alleged stalking claim. On both occasions Smith’s ex-wife called the police and on both occasions the Powell Police confirmed that Smith was their main suspect. However, charges were never filed on either occasion.

Meyer, again when questioned this week about the 2015 incident, stated that he was not aware of the 2015 incidents. Finally, Meyer did acknowledge past allegations that had been publicized about Smith this week were a factor in issuing his termination.

The first question to resolve is whether Meyer is negligent? However, the question should be: “in what ways could Meyer be negligent?”

To the latter question there are two obvious ways that Meyer is negligent. The first, and the more detrimental case of negligence, is that Meyer knew about all of Smith’s claims while Smith was employed under Meyer, and yet Meyer did not perform his duty as a head football coach of a public learning institution. This claim of negligence does not seem possible. First, unlike Penn State, in which there was direct evidence at the university that crimes were being committed, here, Meyer did not have any direct evidence that Smith was committing domestic violence. In fact, in the 2009 incident, Meyer reported what he knew to his boss. A disciplinary action was then handed down to Smith. In the case of the 2015 incidents, Meyer claims to be unaware of those occasions.  Typically, this excuse of “being unaware” holds little water in college football, but Powell Police reported that because no charges were filed, they did not list Smith’s name as the suspect in their report. In turn, Meyer wouldn’t have known of Smith’s actions, especially if the police did not make any charges.

The second form of negligence, and one that is more common in prominent college athletic programs but harder to discern, is one in which the head coach failed to perform his duty to ensure a respectable level of discipline in his locker room. In other words, because the coach is so focused on winning, he is failing to ensure that players/coaches are aware of the consequences of their off the field actions. The reason why this form of negligence seems to be possible, with Meyer is because Meyer’s past programs, mainly Florida, are littered with players committing or being charged with egregious criminal acts. A 2013 New York Time article, by Greg Bishop, discussing Meyer’s Gator players and their lack of discipline stated, “[m]any of the charges were typical of college campuses . . . But other, more serious charges included aggravated stalking, domestic violence by strangulation, aggravated assault, burglary, larceny and fraudulent use of credit cards, according to criminal record databases. . ..” It was further reported that in Meyer’s career at Florida (2005-2010), his players were arrested 31 times. At one point a former player of Meyer’s, Janoris Jeinkins, who was dismissed from Florida by Meyer’s successor, stated that, “[i]f Coach Meyer were still coaching, I’d still be playing for the Gators. Coach Meyer knows what it takes to win.”

The aforementioned examples provide evidence that either Meyer’s players show no regard for consequences, which may be right as some of them were alleged to have committed terrible acts. However, if this is the case, it would seem just as likely or prominent, that most football universities would have the same issues, or at least at a similar rate of frequency. On the other hand, it may be that these players do not fear consequences because either the internal consequences (i.e. football consequences) are not adequately communicated to them, so they are not put on notice, or the possible sanctions fail to provide a sufficient deterrence from engaging in criminal behavior. The latter version is similar to a corporation that weighs paying a fine with the potential profits from not following a rule. If the profits are more than the cost of the fine, then it would make economic sense to move forward with breaking the rule and paying the fine. The fine would be considered simply as a “cost of doing business.”

So the claim is essentially that Meyer is failing in his duty, as head football coach, to ensure that he has a reasonably respectable football program. In other words, not only does Meyer have a “duty” to win, but as a public figure for a world renowned institution of knowledge, he has an equally important, if not more important, duty to ensure players are acting correctly.  If they are not, that they are disciplined with a reasonable consequence.

So this form of negligence may be transcending beyond the players to include the coaches that Meyer supervises. For instance, it is hard to conceive that the 2009 charges filed against Smith, and subsequently dropped, were somehow not accurately provided to Meyer. If Meyer was aware of the exact facts of the 2009 incident, would Smith have been dismissed then? (Please remember, although not the NCAA, the NFL had no problem giving Ezekiel Elliot a six game suspension even after no charges were even filed).

No matter what, this form of negligence will persist in football so long as coaches continue to get exorbitantly paid. In other words, the more coaches keep getting paid a lot of money, the more they win. This formula ferments pressure on coaches to win at all costs. This pressure causes internal mistakes to be made, questionable character traits not to be questioned, and blemishes to be quickly covered up or washed away. In other words, because there is such a high demand from the university for the coach to satisfy his “duty” to win, that the coach fails in his other “duty” to lead. So yes, Coach Meyer does “know what it takes to win,” but every other successful college football coach “knows what it takes to win” too. It’s a matter of whether Coach Meyer knows what it takes to lead.

Hader's Hate, and Milwaukee's Miscue

Josh Hader has come in the headlines not for his accomplishment in becoming an all-star relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers, but for his racist and homophobic tweets.  He published these tweets, which have come to light recently, when he was a teenager (2011 and 2012). To be clear, these tweets were wrong, horrifying and disturbing. Hader’s punishment, handed by the MLB as the Brewers will not issue a punishment, is that he must attend “sensitivity training and attend diversity initiatives.” Further, Hader has apologized publicly and privately cried to his teammates. Many of Hader’s teammates, past and present, have also come to his side, saying they never saw any sort of racist or homophobic behavior (many of these players were minorities).  Finally, in Hader’s first appearance on the mound since the racist tweets came to national attention, the Milwaukee Brewer fans (who were almost all white) gave Hader a standing ovation!

Hader’s public apology seems, from reading it, more of a long argued excuse. The following, from NBCSports’ reporter Bill Baer, is Hader’s apology, “I was 17 years old, and as a child I was immature, and obviously I said some things that were inexcusable . . . I’m ready for any consequences that happen for what happened seven years ago.”

The above apology, if it can even be considered an apology, was more along the lines of a passive aggressive apology. First, Hader should have just come out straight and said something like, “I am sorry.  The things I said were obviously inexcusable. I’m willing to accept any resulting consequences for my disgusting behavior and actions.” Please notice in my hypothetical apology for Hader, I don’t use age as a way to excuse behavior. Hader needs to understand that he should allow the court of public opinion and the media to develop his age defense, not him. By him being the one to initially offer up the age excuse is to illustrate his inability but, more importantly, his unwillingness to take full actions for his behavior (for the record, a 17 year old should know not to use racist language, or homophobic language, especially on a public domain such as Twitter).

Further, Hader already has the greatest defense in sports – he is white. There are certain rights afforded to those who are “playing while white”. In David Leonard’s book, Playing While White, he talks about how the media developed Riley Cooper’s defense/redemption when Cooper, a white former Philadelphia Eagles’ wide receiver, used the N-word while drunk at a country music concert.  As Leonard noted, “[t]o redeem Cooper was to redeem white America. No wonder redemption was a guarantee. It is fundamental to playing, living, and breathing, while white.” Cooper offered his apology, and did not use intoxication as an excuse. Then Cooper’s black teammates came to his side to speak up for him, exonerating Cooper, and, in turn, exonerating the white America. As Leonard notes, “[t]he constant depiction of Cooper as a good guy being unfairly demonized, as a man who at worst made a bad choice because of too many beers and a bad temper, who was humble enough to apologize and make amends, whose good nature could be seen in the love from his black teammates made it so Cooper didn’t need to walk the pathway toward redemption. His redemption was inevitable. #MakingMistakesWhileWhite makes that always the case.”

So, when Hader took the mound, less than a week after the racist story broke, it wasn’t amazing to see a mostly white stadium give him a standing ovation. What is even worse is that Milwaukee is one of the most heavily segregated cities in America. So what this ovation illustrated was that white America desperately wanted to “redeem” itself. They wanted to quickly applaud Hader for being able to “move past and grow” from his inexcusable behavior. However, the only way this would have been a credible ovation is if the entire stadium attendees were African – American. By a mostly white crowd standing, applauding Hader, they inadvertently admit to their implied racism/bias. If America wants to claim itself to be a “post-racial” society, as many on the right claim it is, then when situations like this happen the initial and persistent reaction should be to demand accountability from the culprit. They shouldn’t have stood, they should have publicly denounced Hader, underscoring that, “at 17, in today’s society, it is not permissible to state racial slurs.” Instead, they, the white public, chose to immediately forgive Hader.

Finally, Wisconsin is a state that voted for Trump. Trump is the same man who refuses to criticize white supremacist groups, who believes in order over law, who demands that NFL players who kneel for the National Anthem be “fired.”

Trump was elected, not by a “post-racial America”, but by a seasonally dormant, yet well rooted racist society.  That racist weed emerged, for a brief moment, when that crowd stood for Hader.

 

Soccer Doesn't Suck, Penalty Kicks Do

In a moment of desperation and boredom I tuned into the World Cup. This game, or I should say, the “match” was between extremely talented Spain and extremely untalented, and host nation, Russia. The game was tied one to one when I tuned in at the 79^th minute. The game continued to be tied at the 90^th minute, which is the end of “regulation.” However, the “match” was still knotted up even after the “extra minutes” were added on (for those who may not know, “extra minutes” are determined by the amount of time, during regulation, where soccer was not being played, but the clock was running). Still, a winner was still not decided, even after “overtime” (which is two 15 minute periods of extra time). So the “match” concluded with penalty kicks, in which each team has five tries to score penalty kicks against the opposing team’s goalie. Here, Spain missed more penalty kicks than Russia and so Russia won. In the end the football match was decided in a way that was not really “football” and it felt wrong.

First it is understandable as to why the founders of soccer decided that penalty kicks must be the last alternative to how a tied match should be resolved, as the game has to end some time. Essentially Russia and Spain played most of the game without any scores occurring.  For much of the time nothing remotely competitive was going on on the field, other than Spain passing the ball to each other in the middle of the field and nowhere in the vicinity of the Russian goalie. On the other hand, Russia, it seemed, had a simple strategy – push the game to penalty kicks. In other words, Russia knew they athletically had no shot at beating Spain in the course of the traditional style of soccer.  So, Russia’s best shot at a win was by defeating Spain in penalty. In short, Russia knew it could not beat Spain at soccer, but knew it had a chance at beating Spain in a different form of competition, a form of competition not resembling soccer – penalty kicks.

My argument is that penalty kicks, to determine a victor once overtime has been exhausted, should be removed. This is because it provides an incentive for offensively inferior teams, like Russia, to put all their chips in playing only defense and no incentive to play decent offense. Further, although this was a “major” upset in soccer, it wasn’t a real upset. This is because penalty kicks remove nearly all the parameters that create the soccer identity.  Essentially penalty kicks are a different game entirely from soccer. They remove all defenses, all offense, and simply make the goalie guess which way the shooter decides to kick the ball. So while on paper it would look as though Russia bettered Spain in soccer, Russia actually played much worse than Spain in all statistical analysis of the game, except for “penalty kicks.” Penalty kicks are the equivalent to a game of “Monopoly” that has been going on for a while and both players are tied. In order to break the monopoly tie, the two real estate moguls decide to each roll one dice and whoever rolls higher wins the game. However, all reasonable minds can conclude that although rolling of the dice is a crucial part of the board game, it alone is not the game itself.

The solution is to alter the game, but keep its context still alive, so that the victor can confidently claim that they beat the other team at soccer. The most advantageous and equitable alternative would be to remove players from the field, once regulation has concluded. So there are eleven soccer players per team on the field during regulation, if the game goes to overtime, the game should be brought down to seven players on each side. Yes, this would give an advantage to the more skilled team, but the more skilled team had the same proportionate advantage as to when there were eleven players. In turn, what this does is provide those skilled players more space as to create a shot. This proposal allows the soccer game to be decided within the form and framework of soccer, rather than some other game entirely, called “penalty kicks.”  

… American football can’t come soon enough…