Urban Meyer Threatened To Quit Ohio State If They Wouldn’t Allow Him To Hold Church Services For Players

There have been a number of interesting stories regarding Urban Meyer and his college football coaching days, but one he shared over the weekend involving him threatening to quit his job at Ohio State over church services has caught the eye of Ohio State fans. 

This past weekend in Columbus, there was an event called ‘Life Surge’, held in Columbus, which is labeled as a ‘non-denominational, global church planting movement’. There were plenty of former, and current, Ohio State players in attendance, including Jeremiah Smith, Caleb Downs, Kirk Herbstreit and quarterback Tavian St. Clair. 

If you’re wondering, this type of event is more like a fundraiser. It’s a multiple-day event, with lessons on church, finance and building wealth, with a number of different speakers, according to the website. 

If you bring in some of the biggest names that either live or played in that certain town they are in for the weekend, clearly you’ll attract a bigger audience. This was also a chance for attendees to hear stories from former Buckeyes, with Urban Meyer being one of the key speakers. 

Well, when the panel took the stage, it was time to share a few stories about their time at Ohio State, which led to Meyer discussing how he gave athletic director Gene Smith an ultimatum. It was either him leaving the Buckeyes, or Gene Smith allowing Urban to hold some type of church service for his team on Sunday mornings. 

“Every Sunday, right before our team meeting, we’re gonna have church service,” Meyer recalled. Because, the whole week, players don’t have time to go run to church, so I wanna bring church to them. So, the school attorney comes over to me and said ‘coach, you can’t do that’, and I said ‘can’t do what?’. The person says you can’t have the bible study and the church service. And I said, ‘well, we’re gonna do it’. 

Urban Meyer Says He Gave AD Gene Smith An Ultimatum. 

The attorney for Ohio State would go on to explain to Urban Meyer that since there are laws pertaining to separation of church and state, you can’t do that. Clearly, this did not sit well with the Ohio State head football coach, who was adamant that he was going to hold a church-style service for his players before each team meeting on Sunday. 

“I said, ‘I’m really busy, we’re doing it’. She got our athletic director. Gene Smith comes over, I haven’t told this story many times,” Urban Meyer recalled. “But, he comes over and he’s like ‘okay’, and I said ‘Gene, we’re doing this, if not, you gotta let me go’. He’s like, ‘we’re good, let’s go talk’. 

“So the compromise was that we had to call it ‘reflection’. I don’t know in this day and age, your 18 to 21 years old, we take every second of their time. How can you not do that? That’s more of the question. Instead of how do you do it? How do you not do it?”

There will be plenty of people who think this story is a little exaggerated, which I don’t blame them for thinking that way, given some of the stuff we’ve heard over the years from Urban Meyer. I also find it hard to believe Urban Meyer would be quitting his job at Ohio State for something that could’ve been an easy fix. 

This was obviously important for the Buckeyes head coach, who would go on to win the 2014 national championship with Ohio State. 

Given how his final season ended, with a three-game suspension for what the school said was not upholding the values of Ohio State, tied to the Zach Smith situation, then retiring because of ‘health issues’ at the end of the year, I can see why there would be some skeptics. 

But, Urban Meyer has certainly become one of the most influential voices in college football, and his sharing this story is harmless. So, don’t get all upset because Urban Meyer decided to speak about his religion this past weekend. 

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