Urban Meyer thinks people are just “piling on” to stories that could serve in the minds of some as another strike to his reputation. The disgraced former coach is defending himself over accusations by his former Ohio State player Marcus Williamson, who alleged Meyer showed a picture of Trayvon Martin to “institute” the team’s “no hoods policy.”
My first team meeting. (True story 2017) This photo was presented to us via PowerPoint to institute our building wide rule of “no hoods” in the building pic.twitter.com/bGdJVZaEVT
— MARS (@WW_Marcus) January 2, 2022
Martin was a 17-year-old boy shot and killed in Florida in early 2012, by vigilante George Zimmerman. At the time of his murder, Martin was wearing a hoodie. Many professional athletes and people around the country turned the hoodie into a symbol of support over the slain teen, and to bring awareness to the larger issue of systemic violence and racial profiling perpetrated against black people.
“Our team rule was no hats or hoodies or sunglasses of any kind but only in team meetings, just so we could see their eyes and make sure they were paying attention and not asleep,” Meyer said. “We did not, and never would show a picture of Trayvon Martin. My gosh, no. That is absolutely false and you can check with any other player on my teams during that time to confirm what I am saying. Other players know what he is saying is false. I would never do that. He is crossing the line here. It seems people are just piling on now. But that never happened.”
To quote Shawn Carter, “Well, we don’t believe you, you need more people.”
Sorry Urban. Your reputation is shaky at best.
You disgraced yourself in Jacksonville as head coach of the Jaguars with conduct unbecoming. You allowed a known domestic abuse incident with one of your coaches to go unreported while head coach at The Ohio State University. You’ve been caught lying publicly multiple times, and your tenure at the University of Florida was less than ideal regarding off-field incidents.
Williamson sent out an entire 19-tweet thread, and the allegations against Meyer were a small part of his overall theme of the corruption within big-time college football.
Several former Ohio State players jumped on Twitter to defend Meyer and the Ohio State program, to which Williamson tweeted:
“I see a lot of former players don’t want those autograph signings to stop. I’m not mad at it. Just remember I put in the same work you did.”
Media personality Jemele Hill quote tweeted Williamson’s thread with the following, “A thread worth reading. Also, Urban Meyer is a terrible guy.”
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Former OSU player Cardale Jones defended Meyer and the program, tweeting at Hill, “what’s terrible is that you are jumping all over a ‘story’ that basically claims a man and program is racist with no real facts.”
First, this young man never called OSU’s program or Urban Meyer a racist. He spoke about a specific experience he had and college football’s system as a whole. I’m wondering why you seem hellbent on invalidating him, knowing players on most teams are not treated equally. https://t.co/zRec12UtA0
— Jemele Hill (@jemelehill) January 3, 2022
Unless there is video of that meeting we will never truly know what transpired.
What we do know is that Meyer’s done some bad things over the years and they are not isolated incidents. This is a pattern of poor behavior. That doesn’t mean that he showed the picture of Martin as Williamson alleged. But it does mean that we are more likely to believe he would do something like that.
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