Gene Smith is the Athletic Director at The Ohio State University. He became the AD in 2005 and fired a lot of good coaches at OSU. Why? Because he could.
Ohio State Football
Jim Tressel won a National Championship with Ohio State in 2002. Year after year, Tressel was a great football coach. In the year 2010, it was revealed that Buckeye Football players had some shady dealings with a local tattoo parlor. Tressel lied to the NCAA about what he knew, but at the end of the day, his players had traded their own personal property for tattoos. What should have been a slap on the wrist for Tressel turned into a termination. Gene Smith couldn't fire Tressel fast enough.
Tressel is now the President at Youngstown State University. The reason Tressel was expendable? There was another great coach waiting in the wings named Urban Meyer.
Urban Meyer was piling up Championship hardware at Florida, but stepped away due to anxiety issues. Why was Urb so anxious? His roster was loaded with criminals including the deceased Aaron Hernandez. Once at Ohio State, Meyer continued his winning ways. Again, he is a great coach, maybe one of the top 3 or so in the nation. But right now he's suspended pending the fallout from the Zach Smith scandal. If you're Gene Smith, you can't fire Meyer now, you knew his narrative. Meyer was a good man who worked himself into the ground, but surrounded himself with some suspicious characters.
Not just on the football field, but off. Yesterday's update: Assistant Coach Zach Smith is in trouble for domestic abuse and sexual impropriety.
According to ESPN "Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith also knew about the 2015 allegations, according to Zach Smith. Gene Smith, who has been in charge of the Buckeyes' athletic department for more than a decade, has not publicly commented on the situation." If this was the case, if you fired Meyer, you'd have to fire yourself too. I don't know a lot of guys volunteering to fire themselves.
{And I didn't even mention the screw-job Gene Smith gave Luke Fickell.}
Ohio State Men's Basketball
By all accounts, Coach Jim O'Brien left the Ohio State Basketball program in a shambles in 2004, the year before Gene Smith arrived. Vacated wins and lawsuits strewn across the campus like a twister had torn through. Thad Motta came in and won and won and won. No scandals, good recruiting classes and two Final Four appearances. Probably the second best b-ball coach Ohio State ever had. After posting a 337-123 record, Gene Smith couldn't get Motta out of Columbus fast enough in 2017.
Motta's sin? 2 average season in 2016 and 2017.
And that's the Gene Smith ruse. Win AND stay squeaky clean. If you follow college sports at all, you know that is IMPOSSIBLE.
Ohio State Wrestling
Tom Ryan is one of the best Wrestling coaches in the whole world, leading OSU to the National Championship in 2015....
....but Ohio State finds itself embroiled in controversy because former team doctor Richard Strauss allegedly sexually abused students in the 80's and 90's. Strauss killed himself the same year that Smith was hired.
We are talking abut that scandal today because "Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, who is a former OSU assistant wrestling coach, was accused of knowing about Strauss’s abuse and doing nothing about it. Jordan vehemently denied the allegations." That was a quote in Newsweek EARLIER THIS YEAR. With lawsuits now being filled against OSU and the state's Attorney General now investigating the long dead Strauss, your question should be "when did the current ATHLETIC DIRECTOR know?"
Ohio State Hockey
The Ohio State Hockey team is low on the Buckeye sports consciousness, but the best coach the Buckeyes ever had was Canadian John Markell. In 1998 Markell led the ice hockey team to the Frozen Four, heights an OSU team had never imagined. Markell should have had a lifetime extension, but was terminated by Smith 2010.
Merkell's sin? An average season the year after having gone on yet another run in the NCAA Hockey Tournament.
The man waiting in the wings? Mark Osiecki. Fired by Smith after 3 average seasons.
And the guy after that? Steve Rohlik. 3 average seasons, and then 2 NCAA runs. Rohlik should be at OSU for a while, but what do you think will happen to him if he goes 18-18-4 next year?
Ohio State Women's Basketball
I don't pretend to know much about OSU Women's Basketball, so you just get the stats.
Coach Jim Foster hired by Ohio State in 2002. Made the NCAA Tournament every single year.
Missed Tournament in 2013. Gone.
Starting to notice a pattern?
Ohio State Men's Soccer
In 2015, the Ohio State Soccer team made a run into the third round of the NCAA Regionals and posted a 13-4-2 record. Coach Bluem had taken the Buckeyes to their 10th NCAA appearance in 19 years. Coach Bluem was also a radio voice for the Columbus Crew.
After posting 5-13-1 and 8-10-1 seasons, (Bluem's second worst 2 season span) he rode off into the sunset. My question is now, as it was then, for a guy that had the highest rated recruiting class in soccer in 2016 I thought it was strange that he'd walk away from it all a year later.
Unless the A.D. helped him walk away. (You'll have to ask John Bluem that question.).
Ohio State Lacrosse
Today is the Golden Era of OSU Lacrosse, with the team losing in the national championship game in 2017. “I’m grateful to Gene Smith and Janine Oman for allowing me to lead a program that I love at a university that I love,” said Myers as he signed a 5-year contract extension.
Just a reminder, previous coach Joe Breschi made the tournament and then left to go to North Carolina. One of the very few coaches to leave Ohio State for a bigger opportunity in their sport.
If Gene Smith was your team's General Manager, you'd be happy with all his successes. But since he's an Athletic Director, too much controversy has dodged his administration for him to stay. Smith is an employee of the State of Ohio and is in charge of the health and well-being of student-athletes. Time to fire Gene Smith who runs the OSU Athletic Department like a pro-sports franchise.
Editor's Note: Every day there's a new wrinkle in the Zach Smith story....