Speaking with Columbus sports radio station 105.7 The Zone and appearing on The Drive with Matt McCoy and Stan Jackson late Friday afternoon, former Ohio State receivers coach Zach Smith went through a litany of questions from the show’s hosts, claiming that he never committed domestic abuse against his former wife Courtney, and that Ohio State was right in firing him.
Smith was initially asked about the graphic pictures that his wife has shared with the public.
“All I can really say is that we had a volatile relationship,” he said. “It was toxic. By the end of it, it just flat-out needed to end. There was a lot of aggressive situations. The only thing that is absolutely true is that I’ve never committed domestic abuse against her.
“Now there were times when things got out of hand and I had to defensively kind of restrain her and move her and get out of the situation and go sleep at the office, or try to remove myself, that absolutely happened. So I don’t know when those pictures are from.”
The volatile nature of the Smiths’ marriage was also a question for the former assistant, specifically as to his regrets.
“There’s a hundred things. Thousands of things that I regret when things got volatile,” he said. “None of them were physical. I was not a good husband. I pushed her buttons. I could make her mad easily and it happened from time to time. There’s a number of things that I did wrong, but again, that’s between her and I. That’s not anyone else’s business.
“I wasn’t a great husband and we got divorced because of it. The only thing that needs to be cleared up is the fact that there was never domestic abuse. I never hit her. I never got arrested. I never got charged. I got investigated twice and no charges came about because I didn’t do anything physically to hurt her.”
Smith said during the interview that he did not speak with Ohio State head coach Urban Meyer about what was going on at home, choosing instead to shield it from the workplace. That apparently ended during October of 2015, however.
“Plenty of people knew about the allegations that were brought to the Powell police,” Smith said of a 2015 incident. “So much so that how I found out about it, I was on a practice field, I was out recruiting on a bye week. I was on a practice field. I found out about the abuse because Gene Smith called me and said, ‘Zach, you need to be on the next plane home. Your ex-wife has brought forth domestic abuse allegations and you need to get here and we need to find out what’s going on.'”
Meyer has been under fire for what he knew and what he reported, but according to Smith, Ohio State did everything above board where his allegations were concerned.
“I think they handled it exactly how they should have handled it,” he said. “I don’t know who else they should have alerted, but the police were the ones that alerted them. So the authorities have already been alerted to these allegations. They’re investigating them. They investigated it. There were no criminal charges. There was nothing that they said I did wrong, that I deserved to be charged, so the case, it just went away.”
Like that case, Smith’s job at Ohio State has gone away as well.
Asked if he knows why he was fired when he claims he never committed domestic violence, he said he understands what Ohio State had to do.
“I know why I was terminated and I don’t think I did anything that warranted it, but it was going to be unfair for those players at Ohio State, and for the fans and the whole University, to go through the media uproar that came from all of this,” he said. “I don’t think they were wrong to do it. I don’t think I deserved it, but I don’t think they were wrong.”
You can listen to the entire interview here.
Hear from former Ohio State assistant Zach Smith as he gave his first interview since his firing when speaking this afternoon to @1057TheZone: https://t.co/xRvpf9Qgny
— 105.7 The Zone (@1057TheZone) August 3, 2018
just want to know when urban can go back to work. this a police matter and they did nothing- lack of proof? hate these momentum breakers. next 2 recruiting classes can be off the charts.
If Smith is telling the truth, and the Powell police called the university, and Gene Smith called Zack while on a recruiting trip, and it seems everybody knew of the 2015 situation, why was Meyer put on administrative leave? Just because he said he didn’t know about the 2015 situation? Seems everybody else knew.
Hope this is cleared up real quick.
As usual the media only reacts with emotion and zero common sense or logic. Not all domestic situations are clear cut. Often a times there is a lot of mutual combat between both parties and always plenty of inconsistencies. The state of Ohio prefers a physical arrest when a primary physical aggressor can be identified.
Brett McMurphy took a small portion of several incidents along with texts and photos lacking context and immediately alleged cover up from Powell PD to the top of OSU.
What a mess, we should be talking about the start of a great season.
If zach smith is telling the truth and Gene Smith called him back from a recruiting trip because of the abuse claim why in the hell did they throw urban under the bus for not reporting this properly???? If zach is being truthful Gene Smith also knew about this. This is getting more bizarre by the minute. What are we missing here?
Did anyone see the Zach Smith interview on espn? I thought he said several things to support Urban Meyer and the school. The Powell Police department notified OSU of what happened in October 2015. There was nothing else Meyer could have done. It was not his job to investigate what happened between Zach and his wife. The police did that and no charges were filed against Zach. He also said Meyer should not lose his job and it would be a crime if that happened.
My former wife and I had domestic problems. She would attack me and I had to defend myself.
My employer knew about the problem and did not do anything about it. No discussions with my supervisor. What happens if a member of theOzone staff has a similar problem?
If I was Urban’s lawyer, has any other coach in the Athletic department had a domestic violence problem. You have to assume there has been many incidences with the size of the OSU Athletic Department.
I watched espn at 6PM for about 25 minutes and they showed the entire Zach Smith interview and he said there was nothing else Meyer could have done. He and everyone (Gene Smith) knew about what happened in 2015. It was the police who alerted the university. It was not Meyer’s job to investigate what happened. He also said it would be a crime if Meyer still lost his job at the end of the interview.
I then turned to ABC news at 6:30 and they did a very bad job of reporting the latest. They spent about 90 seconds or 2 minutes at most and left out a lot of details in Meyer’s letter and Zach Smith’s interview with espn.
The biggest things I preach these days in this P.C., virtue signaling, #metoo climate are:
1. Don’t Rush to Judgment
2. Innocent until proven guilty
3. Allegations alone should never suffice
I second that C. Perry