The Urban Meyer controversy at the Ohio State University is yet to die down, as one of the school’s trustees has tendered resignation citing inadequate punishment given out to the head football coach.
Jeffrey Wadsworth resigned as shortly after Meyer was suspended last week for three games over the handling of allegations against his assistant coach Zach Smith. He was expecting a “more profound” punishment.
The investigation conducted by Mary Jo White, senior chair with the law firm Debevoise hired by the school, found Meyer failing to comply with the requirements of their contracts.
In an interview with the New York Times, Wadsworth said, “there was something altogether wrong about reducing it to a couple of games.”
He told the Times that he was the lone voice seeking harsher punishment for the coach who tolerated Smith misbehavior for years.
“You read the report,” Wadsworth said. “There’s seven or eight things about emails, memory loss, hearing things five times, and to me, that raised an issue of standards, values — not how many games someone should be suspended for.”
Wadsworth is the first school official to publically denounce the punishment handed over to the coach after the internal investigation found him guilty of mishandling the allegation against his fellow coach.
After the announcement of the suspension, Meyer also apologized to Zach’s wife Courtney Smith and her children.
“I sincerely apologize to Courtney Smith and her children for what they have gone through,” Meyer said.