Ohio State University put coach Urban Meyer on leave on Wednesday while it investigates allegations the football coach knew about a 2015 domestic violence incident involving a former assistant years before the assistant was fired last week. Meyer will be on paid administrative leave and Ryan Day will serve as acting head football coach, the university said.
In a statement, Ohio State said it is "focused on supporting our players and on getting to the truth as expeditiously as possible." Meyer issued a statement saying he and athletic director Gene Smith "agree that being on leave during this inquiry will facilitate its completion. This allows the team to conduct training camp with minimal distraction. I eagerly look forward to the resolution of this matter."
The former assistant, Zach Smith, was fired last week after an Ohio court granted a protective order sought by his ex-wife Courtney Smith. In an interview with the sports news site Stadium released on Thursday, Courtney Smith said she told Meyer's wife Shelley Meyer that she was being abused in 2015. Courtney Smith said her then-husband had assaulted her during an argument about their young children. Smith obtained a restraining order shortly after the incident but charges were never filed.
"Shelley said she was going to have to tell Urban," Courtney Smith told Stadium said. "I said, 'That's fine. You should tell Urban. We can't have somebody like this coaching young men.'"
Meyer said at an appearance in July that he was not aware of the situation until recently, CBS Sports reports.
"I got a text last night that something happened in 2015, and there was nothing," Meyer told reporters at the Big Ten Media Days, adding, "I don't know who creates a story like that."
Former ESPN reporter Brett McMurphy posted on Facebook Wednesday that text messages between the wives of several assistant coaches in 2015 indicated Meyer was aware of the incident.
(CNN) Ohio State University placed its head football coach, Urban Meyer, on paid administrative leave on Wednesday as it investigates whether he was aware of domestic violence allegations against fired assistant coach Zach Smith.
"The university is conducting an investigation into these allegations," Ohio State said. Ryan Day, who has been the team's offensive coordinator, will be acting head football coach while Meyer is on leave.
"We are focused on supporting our players and on getting to the truth as expeditiously as possible," the university said.
Meyer said in a statement that he and Gene Smith, Ohio State's athletic director, "agree that being on leave during this inquiry will facilitate its completion. This allows the team to conduct training camp with minimal distraction. I eagerly look forward to the resolution of this matter."
At issue is whether Meyer knew about domestic violence allegations against Zach Smith made by his ex-wife, Courtney Smith. Zach Smith was the team's wide receivers' coach.
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He said his ESPN contract expires later this month, at which point he will join Stadium, a Chicago-based sports network. Later Wednesday, Stadium published an exclusive video interview with Courtney Smith.
“Shelley said she was going to have to tell Urban,” Smith said in the video. She also said that Shelley Meyer never confirmed to her that she had told her husband about the allegations. Meyer is a registered nurse employed by Ohio State’s College of Nursing, according to an Ohio State website.
The lawyers listed in a local court docket as having represented Zach Smith and Courtney Smith in the recent proceedings did not reply to requests for comment Wednesday. Last week, Zach Smith’s lawyer, Bradley Koffel, told The Columbus Dispatch that the recent trespassing charge stemmed from a misunderstanding related to where Smith was supposed to drop off their children as part of their custodial arrangement.
Smith has worked for Meyer since 2005, when he was a graduate assistant at Florida, and he played for Meyer before that, at Bowling Green. He is also a grandson of Earle Bruce, a former Ohio State coach whom Meyer has identified as a mentor.
The questions of who knew what, and when, about allegations of domestic abuse against an Ohio State athletics employee echo those raised in recent weeks about two other former university employees affiliated with athletics.
Last month, Ohio State announced that an independent investigation, which is still continuing, had uncovered more than 100 former students who said that Dr. Richard H. Strauss, a former university employee and team doctor, had sexually abused them. Three lawsuits have been filed by former athletes in several sports. They say that Strauss used his position as a university-designated medical professional to molest them and that several authority figures knew about it, including a former wrestling coach and a former athletic director. Both have denied that they knew about the Strauss abuse.
That scandal has ensnared Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, one of the most powerful elected Republican politicians in the country, who was an assistant wrestling coach for several years while Strauss was the team doctor. Jordan has denied having had knowledge of the allegations, and he has argued that accusers have been put up to fabricating stories by an unspecified “deep state.”
