SIAP: Zach Smith Did Not Inform Urban Meyer of DUI/OVI Arrest

Submitted by FauxMo on

Thankfully, Urban Meyer is off the hook again, as he has Zach Smith - an impeccably trustworthy source - claiming he never told Urban about his 2013 DUI/OVI arrest.

http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/24367343/former-ohio-state-buckeyes-assistant-coach-zach-smith-says-did-not-tell-urban-meyer-2013-drunken-driving-arrest

Basically, Urban knew in 2009, but did the right thing in trying to help a young troubled couple; did not know about 2013; knew about 2015 but followed reporting protocols; and then knew about 2018 after someone wrote a story about it, and only then fired Smith. 

In my opinion, there are only two possible explanations and conclusions for all of this: 1. Urban Meyer is a thoroughly incompetent manager, and should be fired; 2. Urban Meyer is a thoroughly corrupt manager, and should be fired. 

bacon1431

August 13th, 2018 at 6:38 PM ^

Like Brian said when the shit first came out. It’s his job to know and there’s really no excuse for someone as detail oriented and powerful as Urban Meyer not to know. 

umich1

August 13th, 2018 at 6:39 PM ^

Am I the only one rooting for Ohio State to retain Meyer?

The sonofabitch has a 3-0 record against Harbaugh despite being outcoached 2 of those years.  I’d love to see Harbaugh settle that score.

Generally I’d be concerned about the welfare of the victim, but in this case she is friends with both Shelly and Urban Meyer so I don’t get the feeling she is campaigning for his firing.  Perhaps I’m wrong - if so I would probably change my tune.

But strictly speaking sports, I want Harbaugh to kick his ass on the field.  And I think Harbaugh will, if afforded the opportunity with his players, now that his program has had some time to get established.

bacon1431

August 13th, 2018 at 6:42 PM ^

If Michigan football is entering your mind when you are evaluating this situation, you’re doing it wrong. It’s absolutely hard because we are biased, but we should want the right thing to happen regardless if it is Michigan, OSU, MSU, Duke, Troy, Middle Tennessee State or Washtenaw Community College. 

ndekett

August 13th, 2018 at 7:13 PM ^

I think the sentiment is reasonable and is coming from a place of compassion, but if football had nothing to do with any of this, there might be one thread if this was Troy. The fact that it is our main rival who has been very successful makes this story seem more compelling to us. 

ndekett

August 13th, 2018 at 9:46 PM ^

Agreed. I think that story was as big as it was because Art Briles had built a major power and his career was about to be over due to some real abhorrent shit. The Meyer story is made more prominent because OSU is a top 2 to top 4 program right now.

Of course, we wish him to be fired because we can't have these things continue to go unpunished. All I'm trying say is that the public (especially is) is more engaged with this story because of OSU's status as an athletic program.

umich1

August 13th, 2018 at 7:59 PM ^

Bacon I’m right there with you; the right thing takes precedent.  But in this case, I’m not sure it’s clear cut.  It is definitely best for Urban Meyer to be fired if one of these three conditions are true:

  1. The victim has pain in seeing Urban Meyer keep his job.  This does not appear to be the case, as she is friends with Urban and Shelley and I haven’t heard her advocate for his firing.
  2. Retaining Meyer increases the likelihood of new cases of domestic violence/assault being squashed under his oversight.  You can easily argue this is true - completely fair to reach that conclusion.  I guess I’m not sold yet.  I’m not aware of any other domestic violence issues occurring under Urban Meyer at Ohio State that would suggest a trend.  By all means let me know if I’m wrong. His statement suggested he reported what he was aware of and we are waiting for the investigation to clearly detail what he did in doing so.  We will see.
  3. Retaining Meyer sends messages to others that domestic violence is okay.  Again, reasonable to conclude this.  Depending on where the investigation ends up, retaining Urban Meyer might suggest that lying is okay instead.  I guess I’ll enjoy watching journalists swarm him for the rest of his career wherever he ends up.  Liars get what they deserve.

I get it’s a delicate subject and I think everybody here is against domestic violence.  There is no doubt it is best for Ohio State’s reputation to not hide behind shades of gray and just cut the ties.  If this happened at Michigan, that is what I would advocate for. But if the investigation ultimately clarifies some things, I could be at peace with Urban Meyer staying on board.  And if he stays on, I’ll greatly enjoy watching Harbaugh kick his ass.

 

bacon1431

August 13th, 2018 at 8:53 PM ^

You’re rooting for him to keep his job. Which tells me you don’t really care about anything you’ve posted in your follow up. Football must be taken out of the equation when viewing this. 

Fact is, Urban Meyer knew about 2009. For me, that’s enough to fire him. And whether he knew or didn’t know about follow up indiscretions is irrelevant to me. If he did know, he looked past them despite having nearly a decade’s worth of time to cut ties with him before he was fired. Or he didn’t know and created a culture in which these types of things were not considered important enough for him to know. Either is reason enough to fire him for me. 

umich1

August 13th, 2018 at 9:37 PM ^

Me hoping Urban keeps his job and caring about the points raised in my second post aren’t mutually exclusive. How peculiar it is that you would accuse somebody you don’t know of being disengenious. 

You are welcome to your opinion. I’m not contesting it, I understand your thought process.  But your reaction is over the top.  You assumed the worst, without knowing me personally, based on a short post on a complicated topic.  If you want to discuss my thought process - I’m happy to, and I posted more background behind where my head is at to give context.  But that wasn’t the point of my initial post, the point of my initial post was to ask and understand where others were at.

I use this message board to learn - information about the team, and what others are saying. I’m not a soap box tell others what to think on the internet kind of guy. I’ve never seen value in attacking other posters, or their points of view, as we are a part of the same community after all.

 

umich1

August 14th, 2018 at 6:42 AM ^

You realize the sentence you quoted is literally saying the same thing as point #1 in my follow up post, right? Somehow saying the same thing twice is mutually exclusive?

Me rooting for OSU to retain Meyer means that I think the three conditions in my follow up post will ultimately be satisfied.  Me mentioning point #1 in my initial post was trying to give credence to the fact that there are complexities in the point of view while remaining brief and concise.  Nobody wants to read a 1000 word essay on the topic.

 

Reader71

August 14th, 2018 at 11:49 AM ^

The problem, for me, is that they’ve already framed the way we’re looking at this so that whether he reported or not is the only standard to be met.

I think there should be a higher standard — multiple allegations of spousal abuse, even if none result in charges or a conviction, should be enough to justify firing him. It’s bad for the program.

Meyer not firing Smith shows a lack of awareness and a failure to put the program first. And if it’s true that he didn’t know of some of these allegations, that’s a stunning lack of institutional control; Bo and Lloyd always got the police blotter to see if anyone in the program had gotten into any trouble.

UofMfanINcolumbus

August 13th, 2018 at 6:40 PM ^

<insert crying laugh emoji here> Zack Smith is covering Urbans ass so much during this whole shit storm. He’ll keep his job and the asshole fans will continues to bash Courtney Smith for being a victim of Domestic Violence. Pieces of shit.

Sharuck

August 13th, 2018 at 6:52 PM ^

You understand that the relevant question now is "Should Zach Smith be reinstated?" and not "Should Urban Meyer be fired?"  If not, read this: https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=10211911720977265&id=1498798014

 

COURTNEY SMITH'S MOTHER CLAIMS ZACH SMITH WAS NOT ABUSIVE AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN FIRED -- AND POWELL POLICE COMMUNICATED EVIDENCE TO OHIO STATE

BY JEFF SNOOK
Tina Carano, Courtney Carano Smith’s mother, originally didn’t want to speak publicly about her daughter’s and her ex-husband Zach Smith’s volatile relationship that resulted in Smith’s firing and the current investigation of the Ohio State football program, leaving head coach Urban Meyer on paid-administrative leave.
But “enough is enough,” she said Monday morning.
“I wanted to stay out of this mess,” she said. “But I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take all of these lies that are being written. I just want the truth out there once and for all. What’s right is right. It’s been horrible for me to see the lies that were being written about Zach when he didn’t do what he was accused of doing.
“He lost his job over something that didn’t happen.”
Smith, her former son-in-law, was fired as Ohio State’s receivers coach July 23 after it was revealed his ex-wife had obtained a protective order against him July 20 In Delaware County. He also had received a misdemeanor citation for criminal trespass after a May 12 incident at her Powell, Ohio, residence, in an incident when Zach Smith dropped off his son. He has pleaded not guilty.
“When Zach got fired, I was in disbelief that it happened the way it did. I was trying to stay out of it, but I really wanted to come forward and tell the whole story,” Tina Carano said. “I do want to see and have a relationship with my grandchildren someday.
“But the fact is that Courtney set him up in this whole thing. She was determined to bring him down and she wanted to keep her current boyfriend, who didn’t want Zach around.”
Carano, who currently is estranged from her 33-year-old daughter, said she was shocked when the scandal led to Meyer, who was placed on paid-administrative leave Aug. 3.
“I was in even more disbelief,” she said. “The first thing that came to my mind is that is what she wanted all along. She was trying to take him down, too. If Urban Meyer gets fired over this, that is frightening to me. My grandson is about to go into the third grade and he would be bullied over this. Kids are so mean to each other and this really concerns me. (Meyer) doesn’t deserve this. He didn’t cover up anything, because there was nothing to cover up. This entire mess was all about revenge and about my daughter being vindictive.’’ 
When asked about the nine police calls to Courtney Smith’s residence from 2012 to 2018, Tina Carano answered, “When the police came to the house all the time, there was no reason to charge him. That’s why there are no charges or arrests for domestic violence. Courtney claimed that Ohio State knew. Well, there were no charges to know about. What are they supposed to do, take her word over his if there is no evidence? They can’t do that.”
A 2015 incident in which the Powell police were called to Courtney Smith’s residence is at the heart of the investigation into Meyer’s role. Meyer said in a statement two weeks ago that he properly reported the incident to university officials.
Carano also said she is sure the Powell police communicated what they had discovered to the Ohio State athletic department over this incident, too. Thus, she claimed, there would have been no reason to fire Smith then.
“In 2015, if any of this was justified, he should have been fired then,” she said. “He wasn’t because none of this was justified. They couldn’t fire him if there was nothing to it.”
Carano claims Zach Smith was the one who could have had her daughter arrested in the past.
Carano, who now lives in Marco Island, Fla., detailed her daughter’s rage in one episode when she hosted her two grandchildren, now 8 and 6, at her residence at 10400 Braemar Drive in Powell.
“In June or July of 2015 after they got separated, we all were at my condo and Zach was picking up or dropping off the kids,” she explained. “Courtney got mad about something, she then got into her car and she deliberately tried to run him over with her car. Zach had to jump out of the way and I thought she actually had run him over. Courtney didn’t care that her own kids were there at the time.” 
Asked why Zach then did not call the police, Tina responded, “He could have gone to the police and had her arrested, but he would never do that.”
In another incident more recently, in 2017, Tina claims Courtney believed Zach had placed a hidden video camera in her residence, so she called the Powell police department.
“They sent someone out … I think it was a detective and they did a clean sweep of the place and found nothing,” Tina said. “She then found somebody to go through it a second time, and that person found nothing. She was just paranoid.”
Zach Smith confirmed both incidents Monday, but did not want to elaborate.
Carano says her daughter’s obsession for getting payback at her ex-husband likely stems from the fact Zach Smith was unfaithful, which he has admitted.
“Zach realizes he was 100 percent wrong,” Tina explained. “I am not excusing that. He admits he was a horrible husband. He doesn’t deny that, but he never hit my daughter. It was just the opposite: She hit him often. She would start hitting him just to start a fight. He would have to grab her arms tight to get control of her. I am sure that left the marks on her arms which everybody saw the pictures of.
“It is wrong for anybody to put their hands on anybody else and that includes a wife beating her husband. Why is that it that people think of domestic abuse and they only think of it the other way around? That is not right. I have known all along who was at fault here. I know how she gets. He told me several times, ‘She hits me.’
“Let me tell you another thing: If my daughter was being beaten by her husband, my ex-husband (Courtney’s father) would step in, but both of us knew the real picture. The fact is that she is out of control when she drinks. We all know that. He just doesn’t want anything to do with making it public – and I felt the same way at first.”
Carano also said her daughter “has been verbally abusive to me and my 84-year-old mother, her grandmother. Nobody in my family wants anything to do with her anymore, and it has nothing to do with Zach. It is how she has treated us.
“I came up in May to help her and we got into an argument with my mother there. She then called me every name in the book, then turned on my mother and then kicked me and my mother out of her house. We both have helped her so much throughout her life. My mom helped her with her student loans, cooked for her and the kids, did her laundry. And who kicks their grandmother, 84 years old, out of their house like that? She just gets out of control when she drinks.”
Tina also claimed most of Courtney’s friends have ended their friendships in recent years, because “they got tired of hearing her obsess over Zach all the time.”
Tina also set the Smiths met at the University of Kentucky when one of her sorority sisters, who happened to be a classmate of Zach Smith’s at Dublin Coffman, set the two up on a date. That sorority sister are no longer close to Courtney Smith, either, Tina claimed.
“I think she has two or three friends left locally,” she said. “And then there’s Michelle ...”
As in Michelle Herman, wife of Texas Longhorns head coach Tom Herman. While Ohio State’s offensive coordinator from 2012-14, Herman and Smith became close at one time. Their wives, Tina said, became even closer.
“They were best friends,” she said. “But Michelle doesn’t live local (sic) anymore, so now it’s a long-distance friendship now. Courtney and Michelle are still very close. They still talk and text … absolutely. Michelle even told Courtney a while ago that she knew the right people and that she could get interviews and that she could also get her a book deal.”
Carano also said Michelle Herman “Once called a high-profile attorney to see if he would represent Courtney. They needed someone that wasn’t OSU-affiliated.”
Courtney Smith’s current attorney, Julia Leveridge, received her undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky in 1997 and her law degree from Capital University in 2000.
On Saturday, Herman denied being involved in Courtney Smith-Zach Smith situation, and denied playing a role in how it became public with Brett McMurphy’s initial reporting, but he did admit to helping Courtney with a “one-time loan.” The money was to pay for Courtney’s attorney fees, several sources said.
Tina claimed that Courtney received “a substantial amount monthly” from Zach Smith, which covered alimony and child support, since their divorce, which she filed for in November, 2015, following a five-month separation. Courtney Smith is currently enrolled in nursing school at Chamberlain University. 
When Zach Smith received a raise in the off-season to increase his salary to $340,000 annually, Courtney planned to file the appropriate paperwork to ask for her child support to be increased, her mother claimed.
As far as her own texts she supposedly sent to Zach Smith in 2015, which McMurphy published, she said she doesn’t remember sending them. “If they are real, and they do exist, I cannot honestly remember it,” she said. “If I did it, and I am not sure I did it, I think I told (Zach) not to touch her and the arguing has got to stop … something just so those two would stop fighting and stop arguing. I just wanted peace in their relationship, for the kids’ sake.”
Carano wanted to make another thing perfectly clear: “Both of them are great parents,” she said. “Zach is a great father and Courtney is a great mother, in spite of all this. They both love their kids. But now their kids are exposed to this mess.
“It breaks my heart, because we were so close once, but I know someone has to do the right thing. Somebody had to tell the truth about all this. I wouldn’t just go around making stuff up about my own daughter. If someone asks about my motive for speaking out this way against my own daughter, it’s that I really think she needs professional help. I hope she reads this and gets that help … I still love her very much.”
The Columbus Dispatch reported Sunday that Zach Smith will meet with the six-member OSU investigative committee this week, and also ask to be reinstated. 
“I never thought he deserved to be fired,” Carano said. “So sure, he deserves his job back. How could they not do the right thing? They didn’t have a good reason to fire him in the first place.”

Sione's Flow

August 13th, 2018 at 7:01 PM ^

Jeff Snook also made the claim about Tom Herman being McMurphy's source, odd thing is on Snook's own Facebook he posted this before the Herman revelation.  Bombshell coming out soon.  IF IT CAN BE PROVEN.  Could have national ramifications.  Thus meaning Snook doesn't know who McMurphy's source was.

4th phase

August 13th, 2018 at 8:16 PM ^

Dude delete this giant wall of text. This was a board topic (at least twice). Even if it wasnt we dont need the entire thing posted, highlight your favorite sentence or something. It's annoying to scroll through on mobile. 

Alright that's my editorial comment. As to the content, what do her mom's opinions prove? Do you really think Zach is the good guy here? Do you somehow think he's going to be vindicated by this investigation just because the victims mom likes him? You're taking her word over the photos and text messages?

Bucknutz36

August 14th, 2018 at 4:50 PM ^

So basically the only thing you care about is whatever makes Meyer and OSU look worse, right?  What does the actual victims mom know?  Seriously?  Perhaps her mom knows the exact dynamic of that relationship.  Perhaps her mom has a bit more "proof" than media hacks.  Oh that's right, they are only hacks without credibility when they report information that doesn't fit your anti-OSU bias.  Can you imagine what a special set of circumstances it would take for a mom to come forward this adamantly against her own daughter?  That's not victim shaming, that's understanding that clearly there is a lot more to this story none of us truly know, and any truly reasonable person would at least see those facts through. And I also love how any report that at a minimum shows there may be far more to this story is immediately dismissed by most on this board.  Even more-so, I love how most on this board still cling to the notion you care about what's right, when all most of you really care about is your beaten down football program catching a break.  

UMForLife

August 13th, 2018 at 6:55 PM ^

Zach has told the truth on everything so far. I can only imagine how Courtney never told his wife. I am waiting for a new Twitter update by the McMurphy.

NittanyFan

August 13th, 2018 at 6:55 PM ^

If Zach Smith had his license suspended for 6 months ...... wouldn't somebody have noticed he was being driven around everywhere?  

What happened when Urban said "hey Zach, go down to Texas to talk to this potential recruits."  Zach Smith wouldn't be able to rent a car at the airport.  Right?

I don't know ...... this one, it seems tough for Urban to play the "plausible deniability card."

ColeIsCorky

August 13th, 2018 at 11:09 PM ^

It would be nice if the media would ask these same questions instead of just reporting what everyone says happened. The fact that McMurphy was the only one who decided not to trust what was being said in public and do some actual research gives further proof that investigative journalism is somewhat lacking at the moment. Surprise: People lie. 

Just like you said, there is no possible way that Urban Meyer didnt know he had a suspended license. I dont know how you just accept that and move on without at least asking a bunch of questions. Makes no sense.

1 percent

August 13th, 2018 at 6:58 PM ^

How the hell does every coach know when their players have the slightest run in with the law but a coach is out here getting DUIs and trespassing charges, taking mandated classes, and court visits and the coach has no fuckin clue?