Urban Meyer, D.J. Durkin scandals show need to catch up with times

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Pete Thamel

Mon, Aug 13, 2018

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Two searing controversies at Ohio State and Maryland in recent weeks have rocked college football and led to both of their coaches being put on leave.

At Ohio State, a decision on Urban Meyer's fate as the head coach is expected to come within the next week. He's on paid administrative leave as the university investigates how he handled domestic abuse allegations against a former Buckeyes assistant. At Maryland, coach D.J. Durkin is on leave , along with three other staff members, in the wake of an ESPN report that revealed disturbing details surrounding the death of a player in a workout. Meyer's fate is up in the air, and Durkin faces a steep uphill climb to return to the sideline at Maryland.

These two situations are vastly different, but they merge at a time in society of greater accountability and transparency that transcend status and success. In college athletics, their emergence in the same moment has sent a distinct message – the societal trends reflected in the #MeToo movement have made their way to college football.

"I think it might be a little bit of an inflection point," said Oliver Luck, a former NCAA executive and athletic director who is now the commissioner and CEO of the XFL. "I don't think college football is immune from societal influences and pressures. Nothing is."

The #MeToo movement began in October 2017 with a blockbuster story in The New York Times about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein . Since, we've seen numerous examples of greater accountability and demands for greater transparency in entertainment (Kevin Spacey), academia (USC president Max Nikias), sports (USA Gymnastics) and beyond.

Meyer's situation will be resolved in the next week, with the university appointing a six-person working group that includes lead investigator Mary Jo White. She's known for rigorous investigations in the NFL, including the recent probes of Cowboys tailback Ezekiel Elliott and Panthers owner Jerry Richardson.

Urban Meyer is on paid administrative leave while an investigation plays out at Ohio State. (AP)

Ohio State suspending Meyer and investigating what he knew in the wake of reports about the alleged domestic abuse of the ex-wife of a former coach is viewed by many as a cultural shift. A report by college football reporter Brett McMurphy published text messages from Courtney Smith, the ex-wife of former OSU assistant Zach Smith , to Meyer's wife that detailed the alleged abuse with photographs.

It's unknown what Meyer knew of the allegations – he asserted in a statement that he has "always followed proper protocols" and Zach Smith has said he engaged with athletic director Gene Smith on the topic. But Meyer inflamed the situation with a series of responses at Big Ten media day that he later acknowledged were inaccurate and apologized for.

"I'm not trying to moralize, but we have been a little captivated by the left and right columns [of the standings] a little bit more than we should have," said Jim Livengood, a consultant who is the former athletic director at UNLV, Arizona and Washington State. "The old notion that a lot of those things don't seem to be issues when there's good marks on the left column is gone."

Zach Smith was arrested in 2009 for an alleged domestic dispute while a graduate assistant at Florida. He was investigated for another domestic dispute in 2015. The attention drawn to Ohio State and Smith's case likely means that an age-old fallback line for troubled coaches and players – "the charges were dropped" – is less likely to be accepted around college athletics. Any coach hired with any type of domestic dispute in their background will be viewed through the prism of Smith's controversy. "A lot of hiring practices are going to be more highly scrutinized," Livengood said. "Not just having the compliance office and search firms do the background. Everything is going to be scrutinized."

The case of Durkin, strength coach Rick Court, and Maryland trainers Steve Nordwall and Wes Robinson could also lead to a shift in the expectations of the way players are treated. The enduring anecdote from the ESPN report is of Maryland head athletic trainer Wes Robinson yelling, "Drag his ass across the field!" as Jordan McNair struggled to finish a workout of 10 sprints of 110 yards. McNair was flailing so badly he needed two teammates to help him finish. ESPN reported, via McNair's lawyers, that Maryland officials waited nearly an hour after McNair had a seizure to call an ambulance.

The reverberations from that tragedy will lead to an examination of workouts, training practices and the treatment of players around the country. (Maryland has two investigations into the matter, one by a former athletic trainer and another by an outside firm). "Every staff in the country is reviewing what they are doing and making sure they are doing things the way they should be," said Gerry DiNardo, a Big Ten Network analyst and former head coach at LSU, Vanderbilt and Indiana. "Would anyone watching approve?"

The line between demanding and demeaning, once blurred by the privacy of predawn workouts and the facade of building toughness, has become clearer in recent years. Court's alleged usage of curse words to belittle players seems antiquated, a scene from "The Junction Boys" that should have stayed in the black-and-white era. The issues at Maryland have been discussed internally by coaching staffs all over the country, as coaches and strength coaches realize they are a few disgruntled players away from being cast as Neanderthals in a new era.

"You need to keep up with the times of how society is changing and how politically correct everything is," said a Division I head coach. "You better have everything buttoned up in every department, or it's going to catch up to you. You are seeing that whatever was acceptable years ago isn't as acceptable now."

D.J. Durkin won't likely keep his job at Maryland after a player of his, Jordan McNair, died during an offseason workout. (AP)

As the drama of the past few weeks played out, former Baylor coach Art Briles began coaching football in Italy, essentially the only place he could find work in the wake of the sexual assault scandal that cost him his job in 2016. Second chances are more difficult in the current environment, even for someone as successful as Briles, who won 32 games over his final three seasons.

It's worth noting that Maryland president Wallace Loh, who finds himself at the center of navigating this scandal, recently gave a notable second chance. Loh promoted interim athletic director Damon Evans to full-time despite a transgression in Evans' past that would have likely had him exiled from college athletics if it happened today. In July 2010, Evans got arrested for drunken driving. In the police report, Evans is quoted attempting to use his position to get out of the arrest and was found with a "red pair of lady's panties between [Evans'] legs." He was in the car with a woman a dozen years younger than him who wasn't his wife. "It made me a better person, a better father, a better husband, a better friend, a better colleague," Evans told The Baltimore Sun in June, when he was promoted nearly a week after McNair's death. "And you grow from those things."

Evans' first major task as athletic director will likely be to oversee a football season with an interim coach [Matt Canada], potentially hire a new one and help heal a fractured program and athletic department. In Columbus, the decision on Meyer this week will be one of the most scrutinized in recent years in college football. The sport has clearly changed and evolved along the lines of societal trends. It's up to the coaches and administrators to change with it.

"I'm not trying to be a scaremonger, but we're in a different day and age at a lot of different levels," Livengood said. "A lot of our practices are going to be looked at that may not have been 20 years or even 10 years ago."

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