Urban Meyer isn’t the first college football coach accused of mishandling a response to domestic-abuse reports involving one of his assistants.
In 2016, Mike MacIntyre, the head coach at the University of Colorado at Boulder, faced similar criticism for failing to notify the proper authorities when a woman reported being physically and emotionally abused by an assistant coach.
But while the Boulder coach was ordered to donate $100,000 toward a group that combats domestic violence and remained on the job, Meyer was immediately suspended with pay just as pre-season practice was about to kick off.
The university’s trustees announced late Thursday that they have appointed a special six-member committee to investigate Meyer’s handling of the domestic-abuse controversy. The group will try to determine what Meyer knew, when he learned it, and whether he failed to report abuse allegations to authorities. Members of the committee include three current trustees, as well as a former Ohio House speaker, a former acting U.S. deputy attorney general, and a former federal prosecutor.
To some observers, the tougher initial response by Ohio State reflects how much times have changed over the last year and a half. It was a period during which Michigan State University’s president, Lou Anna K. Simon, was forced to resign after her insistence that she was unaware of the abuse a sports doctor was inflicting on dozens if not hundreds of athletes rang hollow.
Closer to home, four former Ohio State wrestlers are suing the university, alleging that it ignored complaints about another prominent sports doctor who may have molested more than 100 athletes.
In recent years, allegations of abuse in big-money sports programs have also cost universities including Pennsylvania State University, Florida State University, and the University of Tennessee at Knoxville millions of dollars in settlements.
Exploding Public Narratives
Given the damage done to universities over high-profile scandals involving officials accused of looking the other way, it’s not surprising that some, like Ohio State, are taking quicker, more decisive action today, says Peter F. Lake, professor of law at the Center for Excellence in Higher Education Law and Policy at Stetson University.
Recent controversies have shown “the pace at which public narratives explode” when universities don’t get out in front of the controversy, he says.
Acting quickly also sends the message “that sexual violence prevention is more important than winning on the field,” Lake says. “A lot of programs around the country are embracing that message.”
In the social-media swirl that surrounded Meyer’s suspension, it was clear that many fans felt that there was a rush to judgment and that he was unfairly being blamed for the alleged actions of his assistant coach, Zach Smith.
If Ohio State University fires Urban Meyer over this they’re absolute and utter idiots. This man is one of the best college coaches of all time, and he is not the police. Let him coach football and leave him alone. — austyn shelton (@austynshelton)
August 2, 2018
But to others, the suggestion in a Facebook post by an independent sports reporter that Meyer must have known that Smith had abused his ex-wife in 2015 and didn’t discipline him or report it was reason enough to sideline him from the sport, at least while the investigation played out.
While this is still unfolding, even Meyer being suspended while this is under investigation feels like a tipping point in how we view and treat domestic violence. When not only ppl who commit these crimes, but those who enable them are held accountable, we have made true progress — Allison Williams (@AllisonW_Sports)
August 2, 2018
The cases involving Meyer and MacIntyre bear some similarities.
Meyer has acknowledged being aware of a 2009 domestic abuse incident involving his assistant coach, who was then a graduate assistant, and Smith’s pregnant wife, Courtney Smith. Zach Smith was fired last month after he was served a civil protection order on behalf of his now ex-wife. During a media briefing the following day, Meyer denied knowing that Courtney Smith had accused her ex-husband of domestic violence in 2015.
That statement was called into question by this week’s Facebook post, which said that Meyer’s wife, Shelley Meyer, had received text messages and photos from Courtney Smith detailing the alleged continued abuse and that she had been encouraged to tell her husband about it. It’s unclear whether or not Shelley Meyer, who is a registered nurse and an instructor at Ohio State’s nursing school, told him.
On Friday, Meyer released a statement on Twitter conceding that he had known about the 2015 allegation. He said he was “confident I took appropriate action” but had “failed” in how he discussed it at Big Ten Media Days because he wasn’t prepared to discuss sensitive personnel information with reporters. He added that he had always followed proper reporting protocols when informed of allegations of abuse.
In an interview with the sports-streaming website Stadium, Courtney Smith said she believed Meyer knew about the abuse and chose to “enable the abuser and believe whatever story Zach was telling everybody.”
In an interview with ESPN on Friday, Zach Smith said he had informed his coach about the abuse accusations in 2015.
“I explained both sides of the story,” Smith said in the interview. “I volunteered to do that. I didn’t ever hit her. He said, ‘If you hit her, you are fired immediately.’ I looked at him and said, ‘If I hit her, I wouldn’t come in here. I know how you feel about that. If I hit her, I wouldn’t even come to work. I would know it’s over.’”
An Obligation to Report
Complicating the matter for Meyer is his $7.6-million-per-year contract extension, signed in April, that requires him to report any known violations of the university’s sexual-misconduct policy, which would include domestic violence by a staff member, Cleveland.com reported.
It’s unclear, though, whether failing to do so would violate Title IX, the federal gender-equity law. A federal judge, ruling in a lawsuit filed against Colorado’s coach, found that MacIntyre had no legal obligation to protect his assistant’s ex-girlfriend because she wasn’t affiliated with the university.
It’s also unclear whether Meyer’s new obligations could be applied retroactively to 2015, when the last reports of abuse reportedly occurred.
In the Colorado case, MacIntyre received a call directly from the woman who said she’d been abused for years by one of his assistants. MacIntyre reported it to the athletics director, who reported it to the chancellor. All three received minor sanctions for failing to notify Title IX officers or the police when the chancellor determined that wasn’t necessary.
The university’s chancellor, Philip P. DiStefano, was suspended for 10 days without pay, and the athletics director, Rick George, was also ordered to make a $100,000 contribution for domestic-violence survivors.
While some would argue the officials got off relatively easy at Colorado, 2016 was also a year when Baylor University’s leader, Kenneth W. Starr, was removed as president and its head football coach, Art Briles, was fired over sexual-assault allegations that had been swept under the rug for years.
Meyer may be one of the winningest coaches in football, but “nobody is too big to go down in college sports, not anymore,” an ESPN staff writer, Andrea Adelson, wrote on Thursday. “Not after what happened with Art Briles and Baylor or what happened for decades to Michigan State gymnasts or what is happening now at Ohio State.”
The implications of what happened at Ohio State were reverberating in coaching circles around the country this week. The University of South Carolina’s head football coach, Will Muschamp, who replaced Meyer at the University of Florida, told the media Thursday what he said to his coaching staff.
“If you see something, say something,” he said. “Told our staff again today, and I’ve told them multiple times since I’ve been at the University of South Carolina. We are very transparent about everything that happens in our organization. We know exactly who to talk to.”
(August 3, 2018, 5:40 p.m.): This article has been updated with word of the statement released by Urban Meyer and of Zack Smith’s interview.
Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.
