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Urban Meyer claims he threatened to quit his job as the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes over a disagreement he had with the university about holding a church service for this team. Meyer made this claim while speaking during a controversial event in Columbus, Ohio over the weekend.
“Every Sunday, right before our team meeting, we’re going to have church service because you take the whole week,” Urban Meyer recalled. “Players don’t have time to go run a church, so I’m gonna bring church to them.
“And so the school attorney comes over to me and said, ‘Coach, you can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘I can’t do what ?’ She says, ‘you can’t have the Bible study and you can’t have the church service.’
“And I said, ‘well, we’re gonna do it.’ She said, ‘well, you can’t. Separation of church and state. You can’t do that.’ And I said, ‘I’m really busy. We’re doing it.’
“She got our athletic director,” Meyer continued. “Gene (Smith) comes over, I haven’t told this story many times. But, he comes over … and he’s like ‘Okay’, and I said ‘Gene, we’re doing this, and 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 saying, ‘How do you do it?’ How do you not do it?”
Here's Urban Meyer explaining how he installed church and Bible study programs at Ohio State by calling them "reflection" services, which allowed him to circumvent a university lawyer's concern about separation of church and state statutes. https://t.co/P90gpvXcZp pic.twitter.com/kFoDm3YzKF
— The Rooster (@rooster_ohio) May 12, 2025
The event where Urban Meyer shared this story was at something called Life Surge. Life Surge calls itself “a one-day, live and in-person experience where thousands of local Christians gather to be inspired, trained, and equipped to leave an impact on God’s Kingdom. At Life Surge, you’ll learn why and how to create and multiply financial resources for Kingdom impact.”
According to D.J. Byrnes of The Rooster, who covered the event, “‘Surging your life God’s way’ is where a get-rich-quick scheme meets the Holy Scripture, and numerous Ohio State legends helped funnel financially illiterate Christians into the predatory scam.”
The Rooster, which also broke the Urban Meyer lapdance story in 2021, reports Kirk Herbstreit and three current Buckeye football players also made appearances at the event.