Eleven Warriors on "assaults" and coaches' lying, January 30, 2014
The more you read of some of the Buckeye faithful's individual comments, the richer this gets:
ElevenWarriors.com "Skull Session": Michigan Explains Sex Misconduct
The date is January 30, 2014, and 11W staff writer D.J. Byrnes (currently on leave from their blog as he is running for election as an Ohio state representative) is using his "Skull Session" column to beat up Michigan, Brendan Gibbons and Brady Hoke in the wake of news that Michigan's Office of Student Conflict Resolution had determined that a penalty of expulsion would be applied to 5th-year senior placekicker Brendan Gibbons.
It had become clear that Brady Hoke's incompetent yammering to the press about Gibbons being injured and his needing to leave the team before the Ohio State game due to a "family" matter was absolutely misleading at best and a total lie -- to the press -- at worst.
My handle at 11W was "M Man." If, as you read this, you think I got anything wrong (I was reeeaaallly conservative about not speculating about stuff that I'd be a lot more happy calling out now), let me know.
The beauty of this old post on their blog from 2014 is that it represents the confluence of everything that they are dealing with now:
- an accusation of violence against a woman, without prosecutable proof, no arrest, no charge, no trial, and no conviction of the accused;
- a head football coach who, caught up in the controversy, misleads the press;
- a Title IX legal framework potentially overlying the whole thing;
- college football fans going berserk, accusing their rival team of committing crimes against humanity; but taking a different posture when the same facts involve a reversal of the teams...
Well, I'll let you read that 11W page linked above and enjoy and decide for yourselves.
I've been accused of everything from being an OSU grad (?!) to being a misogynist in recent days here as I questioned the nature of criminal charges against Zach Smith, the interest of Courtney Smith as someone receiving support payments from Zach based on his OSU salary, and the procedural due process owed to everyone involved including Urban Meyer.
And my principles haven't changed, whether it is the Michigan Wolverines or the Ohio State Buckeyes under the legal microscope.
SO SICK OF HEARING ABOUT OHIO STATE!!!
I mean...you've only been around for a week my dude.
Nice microphone drop. I'd up vote you if I could!
Lol. Nah
Well you have come to the right place because HERE, you read....not listen.
Not true, he reads everything out loud. Helps him sound it out.
Which banned poster are you?
Think about it this way --- there are less posts about "this board is dying, nobody posts here anymore with the new format!"
The first comment to that OP is exactly what we have been wondering about your situation, OSU.
this seems like an elaborate way of patting yourself on the back for being so reasonable and even-keeled
Are you new to Section 1?
Living here in Ohio I am surrounded by Buckeye fans who are defending Meyer with everything they have to give. Why? Because he wins a lot of football games and beats Michigan on the regular. They dont care about domestic abuse and what happened to Courtney Smith one bit if they're being honest with themselves - they care about winning football games and especially winning the game against Michigan.
I also spend a fair amount of time on this blog and twitter. And as evidenced by several posts (not this one specifically) and the sheer volume of threads being created people in the Michigan universe REALLY want to see Meyer fired. Why? I think because he wins a lot of football games and beats Michigan on the regular. It's not that people dont care about domestic abuse but man - it's really become important here and last time I checked this has been an ongoing problem in society in general for quite a while and does anybody remember the last post on the issue BEFORE this whole thing broke?
It bothers me to see "what recruits can we get" type posts. It bothers me to see tweets of people clutching pearls on the DM issue who I absolutely know could care less about Courtney Smith but care a lot about how Meyer is beating Michigan on the field and in recruiting and see this as an opportunity to get Meyer fired.
And we still have two more weeks to go.
Well said
I agree. The football absolutely skews the view of everyone here, including me.
I will say that part of the problem is that programs that can manage to skate past stuff like this continue to be fine as long as they win. People like rooting for a program that is morally good, but they like rooting for a winner more. They'll sacrifice the morals before they sacrifice the winning.
Just look at how people were treating Beilein before he started his run in March of 17.
This is a needed post.
As someone who has dealt with DV professionally, I've been very surprised to have some of the conversations that we've had about it here on the blog in the last four or five days. I'm elated by our societal view of the issue shifting so much. I almost can't believe it. That said, we need to figure out exactly what we do and do not expect of coaches and other employers if we want this shift to last. The pendulum will eventually swing in the other direction if someone has to be fired simply because a situation sounds bad at first glance and we don't like the guy.
It would be good to expect college coaches to have an understanding of the dynamics of DV. It may also be a societal good if coaches know that they will be fired if they come anywhere near DV without doing everything they can to have the abuser expelled from the program. But I also think we have to acknowledge that we didn't expect that of coaches in the very recent past. And there need to be guidelines about how to respond to DV that are clear but that also account for its nuances. Those won't be as easy to produce as it might seem.
A final note: I am not saying any of this to defend Meyer. I am not that interested in his fate in particular. This issue is much bigger than him.
I agree. I believe coaches need to e the ones who report and start the request for an investigation. The AD should be required to follow through on all said automatic requests, and their should be a transparency of the evidence found. I believe a coach has an obligation to make sure his or her staff is clean.
I do not like the argument that coaches only have to report the allegations and are absolved of any other responsibility. We get a case like Smith’s, then, where a coach can allegedly report what he or she knows and then leave it at that. There is an ethical duty for a superior—especially one with so much staff—to make sure the subordinate does not talk his or her way out of punishment.
Meyer is a powerful man, as evidenced by his ability to lie, admit to it, and have people change their ethics to fit why to keep him. He could easily have taken the steps to investigate and have cause to fire.
Otherwise, coaches get to be enablers who justify their keeping staff members because they felt they ccannot ups change them, or because they did not want to ruin someone’s job prospects. Instead of giving the Meyers of the world to have the choice to report to AD and wash hands—he or she needs to be required (as Meyer is able to fire and hire who he wants, pretty much) to request AD to do automatic inquiries that result in termination with cause.
I take football out of it and think of the victims. Who cares about the coach—OSU will still be a top tier program and hire the best available. Meyer has appeared to enable an abuser, sees no issue with it, and that is abhorrent. That’s why he should be fired. Men need to stop proteooher men from their misdeeds. Be loyal to the innocent.
Completely agree with this setiment. This truly is above football. It's about life, and not harming another human being.
My issue is he's known since 2009. Urban and Shellie counseled the Smiths after he threw his pregnant wife into the wall. We know the Earle Bruce story after.
But I'm also focusing on is his employer for a sec. Florida at the time. Typically businesses have some sort of written clause that protects them from lawsuit, if they fire someone for actions outside the workplace that they deem deviant or discreditable to said business (ala Moeller). So both Urban or UF could have fired him. And let's say we also give Urban a pass as he's trying to fix a broken Smith. Because everyone deserves a second chance. But the second chance includes counseling and a firm understanding that if you touch her again, you're done.
But you know the rest of the story. 2013 comes around, Smith should have been fired immediately. So now, we have factual proof that Urban cares more about winning football games than being a decent human being..
It's a travesty. Urban is an enabler. He protects those that help his team. Players and coaches. It's documented. That's the crucks of the issue. "Treat Women With Respect" is a bulletin board item in OSU's locker room. What a joke. And this from a man that has 2 daughters. Unreal.
I personally know in my current job, if I touched my wife, I'm fired tomorrow. I hope OSU does the right thing. Sadly, I don't think they will. They like the money and wins too much...
Appreciate this point of view, MGO.
I personally went full "Fire Meyer" mode when buckeyes went from saying he should be fired if he knew in 2015 to realizing he lied and trying to find every excuse in the book to cover him.
When this first broke my initial reaction was that I wanted to see Harbaugh beat him. Not for it to end this way. But now more than anything it is their fans that clearly need to be taught a lesson by Urban getting fired. It is embarrassing for the university.
OSU fans are hypocrites? No way
26 more days until kickoff, good God that can't come soon enough!!!!
No thanks...
you did a fine job with the 11W mob. very measured responses. and man, you could cut and paste some of their homer/attack responses right back to them.
Thanks; I want to update one factoid that I didn't have at that time in 2014.
I speculated (and said so) that Gibbons' purported victim was the most likely person to have initiated the OSCR proceeding against him sometime in 2013. I hope it is clear from reading, that mine was a kind of a default presumption.
It has now been made adequately clear (to me, at least) that she did NOT initiate it. Someone else did. I'll let you guess who.
re: guess who? i wouldn't have the slightest clue. maybe a punter-hating rival?
Perpetually aggrieved DJ Byrnes is running for public office? Dafuq?
Yeah, he is a kind of a volunteer candidate for the Democrats in the Ohio House of Representatives 80th District. They had a candidate, but he "rescinded his candidacy," and I'm not sure that they had time or the requisite level of interest for a Democratic primary. So D.J. is their man. He is running against a Republican, Jena Powell, who won a tough Republican primary (there were four or five Republicans vying to fill a seat that will be vacated, in a district that tilts about 70%+ Republican). In 2016, the Republican in that district ran unopposed.
I think we can look forward to D.J. returning to his blogging assignments on about November 7.
I'll never forget that time he created an account here and tried to get everyone all riled up and thought he was being clever. The fact that he is so respected in the OSU bloggosphere is very indicative of the overall intelligence of that fanbase
I don't recall D.J. on these pages; but Ramzy has an account here. He doesn't use it much. But he has on occasion. Jason Priestas, I don't think so.
I was reasonably well-treated there, by everyone except Ramzy. I generally picked my spots, of course. I posted knowing that I'd be attacked from 400 different angles, and that if I wasn't prepared to defend myself on something I that I had to knew better than they did, even a thick skin wouldn't help me.
Here is DJ's profile
I just realized his last post was a response to one of my comments. LOL
I've said for a while that Ramzy is a pseudointellectual. He's very good at coming off as an intellect, but he's really no different than the ubiquitous Buckeye. So that doesn't surprise me.
Well, he went to Indiana, so there's that...
Pseudointellectual. Sheeeit. I knew there was a term for a guy like me, but I just wasn't learned enough to know it. Now I will use this against my enemies, and make myself even more pseudointellectualized. Or something.
I honestly dont care about this anymore because OSU will do nothing about this. They may fire someone insignificant and tell everyone, "see, we took this seriously"
OSU doesnt give a shit about what happened, its all about wins and Meyer wins. He is a complete dirt bag. Gene Smith will be the fall guy and Meyer will come out looking like a hero to OSU and its fans.
Absolutely disgusting but thats what OSU is. Fuck them all
I don't really understand why you're going to such great lengths to try to change the minds of Michigan fans, but this is a clear attempt to try to show M fans who may have defended or at least didn't call for Hoke's head that the situations are similar. I have two points about that:
1) This blog and a large number of M fans were furious about the way that situation was handled and the way it was communicated, BUT
2) Urban's lying isn't close to the real problem here. That's just additional sleaze from him as he selfishly tries to defend himself. The biggest problem by far, and the difference in the Gibbons case is that he allowed a repeat and regular sex abuser to stay on his staff such that it enabled future abuse and set a horrible example for other coaches, players, staff members, many of whom claim to know that it was going on, unpunished.
Your post says "an accusation of violence against a woman" - singular. This is multiple over an extended period of time. And no one can hide behind the "no charges" thing when there were photos and an acknowledgement from the coaches wife that the dude is scary. This wasn't an accusation, this was a known and recognized issue about which nothing was done.
I don't have a huge problem with him giving Smith a second chance after the initial 2009 incident saw the charges dropped, even though it was probably only granted because of who Smith was. It was the third, fourth, etc chances that were given to him that turned it from a one-time mistake to full-on, continuous enablement. Instead of acknowledging the problem and getting the guy help, it was allowed and enabled to continue. He became invincible thanks to Meyer and Ohio law enforcement. It does not matter that the couple wanted him to keep his paycheck. It is about creating accountability and setting the right example and helping and none of that was done.
This is not about a coach lying to the press, that is an issue as old as football itself. This is about a win-at-all-cost coach who thinks he is above human rights. Urban Meyer has a consistent record of denying the truth and the basic ethics required of his position. His track record at Florida was abysmal and he started better at OSU, but this incident is the same old FLA shit. "Win-at-all-cost and trample everyone in my way."
President Drake is not cut from the same cloth as Urban Meyer, who demonstrates a major character flaw if not an outright personality disorder in dealing with reality. Basic human rights are way more important than any football game, football season or football program. President Drake gets that. We will see who prevails, the ethics of a highly ethical Stanford guy or the pitchforks of Columbus.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:18 PM ^
Think you make a good point about Courtney Smith being much better off if Zach kept his high-paying job at OSU. Things must have gotten really bad for her to repeatedly involve police. Wait no, she was crazy.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:30 AM ^
So you are "M Man" in the comments over there posing as a Michigan fan? You should try and at least switch up your writing style if you're going to go to this length to be seen by both Mgoblog and Eleven Worriors. Everyone sees that you're an OSU troll here, I hope everyone saw that you were pretending to be a Michigan fan there.
I hope you find happiness in your life at some point. Being glued to a rivals blog for entertainment only means you have nothing real in life that makes you happy. Instead you're always looking for grief in others around you to make your life seem better. As for posing as a Michigan fan over there, it's pretty pathetic.
I don’t understand your comment. I’m a Michigan grad. Season ticket holder. Booster.
i read 11W because they often have good content. MGoBlog often has good content. Sometimes, I disagreed with something and would say so. I sometimes see content or comments here that I disagree with; I say so.
I am no more “glued” to 11W than MGo.
You've been called out several times by several posters, you're an OSU troll.
Of course I have. By MGoBoard members. You're mistaking me, chief, for someone who cares about members of the MGoBoard.
I have been public in my disagreements with members (and owners) of this blog for just about as long as I have been a member here.
The absolute last thing I care about is being a liked member whose views "fit" with the rest of the membership. My disagreements here have never been exclusively related to Ohio State. However, a lot of them are, and the simple reason for that is because so many Michigan fans let their emotions get the better of them on that subject. And so I call those items out for correction.
August 7th, 2018 at 12:52 AM ^
Nah, I'll pass. Thanks though.
I think the most damning thing I've seen is that even if Urban reported the 2015 incident to Gene, clearly he did the absolute least he could do. Not only did he not put ZS on leave or anything else, the athletic department approved some pretty significant raises for him in 2015, 2016, and 2017.
That tells me there entire department is pretty full of shit. From the sound of it the Woody Hayes Center is a culture of enablers in the name of winning football games. I was originally on the fence on if Urban really needed to be fired, but now I find myself as tax payer in Ohio and wanting to make sure none of those involved have jobs at the end of this.