Why Penn State fans shouldn’t taunt Urban Meyer | Mike Jensen
Ohio State's coach, back from a suspension, is the villain. But history could have been different.
As the Bryce Jordan Center filled up for a memorial service for Joe Paterno that January day in 2012, four days after Paterno had died, you couldn't help but notice a man who showed up early and took a seat on the floor toward the front of the arena. Urban Meyer had just taken the Ohio State coaching job. His strong relationship with Paterno, however, went back to a different time.
There had even been a rumor that needed to be checked out during the previous year that Meyer had been looking at homes in the area. The idea was that he was the "coach in waiting" to succeed Paterno.
The rumor evaporated on contact, but it had a foundation. Several weeks before Paterno died, a prominent Penn State alumnus and booster told an Inquirer reporter that Paterno, planning to retire anyway before he was fired, had provided administrators with a list of four prospective replacements. One was Urban Meyer.
Meyer took the Buckeyes job, won a national title, and yet … here, history has turned again. Scandal had plagued Penn State. This year, a different one has settled in Columbus. You've read about the ugly details.
The same man who would have been lionized as a savior in State College under an alternate history now is the enemy. That's sports. That's life, apparently. We draw lines and don't want anyone crossing them. We join tribes, and if you're not in, you're way out. And if you're in, we seem to forgive so much. You're out? You're going to hell. Too strong? Have you seen the headlines lately? Have you turned on a television? Life imitates sports.
You've seen the Penn State "Urban Liar" T-shirt prepared for this weekend as the Buckeyes invade State College for a crucial Big Ten matchup?
Yes, students will be students. This is benign compared to what could be put on a shirt. In college sports, heckling is to be expected and often encouraged. This is not to exonerate Meyer. He might deny being a liar, but he's at the least a master dissembler about a most serious issue. And there's no doubt that Meyer didn't need a background check to know the assistant he was hiring at Ohio State had serious previous domestic-violence allegations against him.
It's just the idea that Penn Staters think they now can claim some moral high ground. I get that if you're an undergrad, the Sandusky scandal was a third of a lifetime ago. Still. They teach history classes at Penn State, right?
It's also true that flying in for a memorial service doesn't have anything to do with a present-day rivalry. Still.
So Ohio State fans have the moral high ground here? Please. Whatever percentage of fans threw their support behind Meyer as he was suspended in the wake of a domestic-violence scandal involving a now-fired assistant coach factored in a national title and his win-loss record. More losses than wins, and you think Meyer would have survived?
You just couldn't help but hear echoes as some of the Urban faithful rallied to his support. Such a statement will have Paterno loyalists frothing, and we have no interest in relitigating what happened with the Sandusky scandal. (Send your emails anyway.)
Over at Michigan State, there's been a horrific scandal, no sides to be drawn when you hear that a team doctor serially abused female athletes. However, when popular coaches got drawn into the periphery of the scandal, Spartans fans started to get defensive.
The Big Ten once liked to claim some kind of moral high ground in terms of doing big-time college sports right. Now? It's the poster child for the abuses of the big-time.
Beaver Stadium will be rocking Saturday night. ESPN will be on campus all day. There might be no better atmosphere in college sports this season. In many ways, it will represent the best of college sports, the excitement of the whole enterprise.
Just leave the "Urban Liar" T-shirts at home. Have a sense of history. An alternate one would have had you defending the man.