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.