Yep, this will end well.
Even as his support seems to be eroding, possibly even from his employer, in the wake of a bombshell report, Urban Meyer has a champion in Jay Paterno. The former Penn State assistant, whose father, the legendary Joe Paterno, was ousted from his longtime post amidst scandal, penned an impassioned post on his personal website titled “Due Process & Rule of Law for Urban Meyer” in which he “implore[s] the Board at Ohio State to stand up to the mob mentality” in making a decision on the head coach’s fate.
“We should wait for facts,” Paterno wrote. “We should drive a stake in the ground to defend due process. We should shed our implicit bias against people we dislike being accused. We should have courage to stand against the virtual mob gathering for a virtual lynching before we know the facts.
It’s alleged that Meyer’s wife, Shelley Meyer, knew that the wife of former OSU wide receivers coach Zach Smith, Courtney Smith, was being physically abused by the assistant.
“Shelly said she was going to have to tell Urban,” Courtney claimed in an interview. “I said: ‘That’s fine, you should tell Urban.’ I know Shelley did everything she could.”
Courtney Smith acknowledged that Shelley Meyer never confirmed that she told her husband about the alleged abuse. And Meyer has previously vehemently denied that he knew of allegations of abuse in October of 2015. However, a purported text message conversation between Courtney Smith and one of Meyer’s longtime football staffersseemed to show that Meyer discussed the 2015 allegations with Smith at the time, which the assistant denied. Still, such a conversation would indicate that Meyer was aware of the situation, as he was with an alleged 2009 domestic abuse incident when Meyer was the head coach at Florida and Smith was a staffer.
“No matter what is proven about these allegations against the former wide receiver coach at Ohio State,” wrote Paterno, “this much is beyond doubt: Urban Meyer did not commit a crime, he did not witness, nor did he cover up any crimes. He hasn’t even been accused of one but yet there will be voices unjustly calling for his job.”
Paterno went on to “implore the Board at Ohio State to stand up to the mob mentality, to say that ‘when we have the facts of the case and only when we have the facts of the case will we react and make informed decisions.’ ...
“We should wait for facts. We should drive a stake in the ground to defend due process. We should shed our implicit bias against people we dislike being accused. We should have courage to stand against the virtual mob gathering for a virtual lynching before we know the facts.
And for those who need a refresher course: Published allegations do NOT automatically equal facts.”
For the entire text of Paterno’s impassioned post, click HERE.