Thursday the 3rd of August, 2018, it was released that Urban Meyer, the present Ohio State head football coach, was placed on administrative leave due to his alleged neglect of making the necessary movements to expose and correct one of his football staff members of domestic violence against his wife dating as far back as 2009. His “sounds of silence” may well be his undoing as the head coach of the Buckeyes. If he loses his job as a result of an investigation, his fantastic coaching career will have been tainted. Something he’ll probably regret for the rest of his life. In his case, inactions (sins of omission), are as guilty as overt ones. Especially as a coach, you just can’t stand idly by and turn the other way so as not to become involved. This tactic doesn’t compute anymore. Urban should have learned that lesson from Joe Paterno, but he obviously didn’t!

Of course there’s always the pride factor involved in almost any misconduct. Loyalty to the head coach and vice versa are considered mandatory by both participating parties. Who wants to make public that your very successful football program has a chink in its armor? (Pride goes before destruction according to the Bible). Proverbs 16:18

But there’s an overriding responsibility to his football players’ (and the university’s) wellbeing that should have trumped his pride and silence. Seems like the greater the power and/or success one has the more difficult it is to come clean when need be.

Now we have another #MeToo Movement in the making. But this time, against the high–powered men of athletics (in college and pro football) who find it more to their advantage to remain mute to domestic violence on their watch. Christians are supposed to expose evil (along with non–Christians too). I would have thought, that in coaching Tim Tebow for four years, some of Tim’s Christian principles would have rubbed–off on Urban. Apparently not. At least not the ones that would have changed the outcome of this abuse mishandling. Too bad. I really liked Urban Meyer–that is until he bolted from the Gators to Buckeyes. Money talks and…..

The background fans gesturing the big “O” for Ohio State well reflect the football fanatics’ will to gloss over past the negative truths which are (allegedly) finally surfacing of their coaching hero. That a little bird told me so (supposedly, revealing emails between Urban and Zack’s wives) is the cautionary phrase (in so many words) from the Bible, warning that negative spoken words (especially toward people in high places), quite frequently, can return to bite you in the butt. Ecclesiastes 10:20