Urban Meyer’s Suspension is a Pathetic Joke
Often times it saddens me to think about the world that we live in today, as winning in sports at any level seems to be more important than life altering events and problems that everyone has when real life is constantly ongoing. Take the three-game suspension of Ohio State coach Urban Meyer which was announced on Wednesday, and was one of the most asinine penalties ever rendered for a person in charge of a program, considering the consequences of his actions and failure to tell the truth when it came to the domestic violence case involving his former assistant coach Zach Smith.
Considering the inconsistent investigation, Meyer's constant lies, and bad ones at that, saying that he was unaware of his wife's text messages in 2015 that also included pictures of Courtney Smith's bruises; it is my belief that Meyer should have been fired or have resigned. Instead he gave an insincere press conference following the announced suspension, and will continue to coach this season for Ohio State because after all, why should their program or any other for that matter care about domestic violence, as long as they win, that is all that matters. Meyer's 73-8 record and a national championship at Ohio State prove this to be an accurate statement.
What gets me is that Meyer said that he didn't know about his wife Shelley's text messages at the time, really? Any married man can tell you that he damn well better know about his wife's text messages, even if it involves a simple honey do like get milk from the store, much or less involving the wife of an assistant coach who's being abused! According to investigators, Meyer even went as far as to inquiring how to delete text messages that were more than a year old once news broke, but yet he had nothing to hide and didn't even know about his wife's text messages in 2015, yep that sounds believable.
Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith was also suspended without pay for two weeks and according to the investigation findings, both Smith and Meyer were aware of the 2015 law enforcement investigation into domestic violence by Zach Smith, neither reported Smith’s investigation to compliance though. If that doesn't raise numerous red flags, then nothing will. Another thing that boggles my mind is that the investigators said that Coach Meyer didn't deliberately lie which is the most preposterous conclusion that they came to, was he simply accidentally lying?
Here's the bottom line, Meyer knew of the allegations of domestic violence on Zach Smith in 2015, and knew it wasn't the first time this had occurred, yet never shared that with his boss. He knows a lot more than what is being admitted, the constant lying proves that, hence Urban Meyer should be relieved of his coaching duties. If Joe Paterno was fired from Penn State after being there for 61 years for not exposing convicted child abuser Jerry Sandusky, then there is no reason why Meyer should still have his job at Ohio State, as he was fully aware of what was occurring for quite sometime. As the great Vince Lombardi said, "winning ins't everything, it's the only thing." I suppose this is true in athletics, but life is a lot more important.