Who is Ohio Representative Josh Williams?
Ohio is not sending their best
Josh Williams is a Republican politician representing the 44th district in the Ohio House of Representatives. It is a wildly gerrymandered district with Toledo’s suburbs as its clear point of capture, no doubt so as to safely secure a conservative seat.
Subsequent to Ohio State footballs players instigating a great big brawl in response to Michigan’s beating them and planting a flag at centerfield, Josh Williams took time out of his busy day haranguing poor people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to introduce a house bill that would make flag planting a felony. He calls it the O.H.I.O. Sportmanship Act.
The bill was a stunt, but it’s still amusing to think about someone spending literally any amount of time drafting it. Here is the meat of the text:
No person shall plant a flagpole with a flag attached to it in the center of the football field at Ohio stadium of the Ohio state university on the day of a college football competition, whether before, during, or after the competition. Whoever violates this section is guilty of a felony of the fifth degree.
Unlike Josh Williams, I am not a lawyer. But I can tell this is a very poorly written law.
It’s overly broad in that it would apply to the Ohio State Marching Band if they planted a flag at centerfield as part of a halftime show. Paradoxically, it is also very narrow with a number of obvious loopholes. For instance, the text specifies that the pole in question can’t be a flagpole, but it doesn’t prohibit other types of poles from being driven in the center of the football field. A vaulting pole, a lance, or a very pointy stick with a flag attached would arguably be kosher.
Moreover, a player wearing maize and blue—two colors I’ve picked from random just for conversation’s sake—could stick a flagless pole between the O at the center of the toilet-shaped Ohio Stadium, then another player could attach a blue flag with a block M in the center to the pole—colors and symbols again picked at random—and no crime would have been committed. Not even a misdemeanor.
His only public comment on the O.H.I.O. Sportmanship Act came in a contentious video posted to TikTok by The Rooster, a Substack-based publication that covers Ohio politics and also broke the Urban Meyer lap dance story, in which an interviewer tells Williams people on Twitter are calling him “soft” for writing the bill.
“If I have to be called soft to preserve the integrity of our institutions and prevent our law enforcement officers from getting injured from a violent encounter on the field cause of a damn flag,” he said as the interviewer laughed at him in disbelief, “I don’t mind being called soft.”
Of course, flag planting presents no danger to institutions, and the only injuries to law enforcement during the brawl were caused by law enforcement hitting their own guys with pepper spray after the fighting had stopped.
After being prodded by The Rooster for his thoughts on Ohio State’s coaching staff, Williams adds with great disgust, “[Head Coach Ryan Day] needs to go. I would have fired him on the field.”
In a demonstration that winning heals all wounds, Williams posted to Twitter—also know as X The Everything App Where You Can Make Payments—the following about a month later:
Let’s Go Buckeyes!
Ohio State is heading to the NCAA National Championship! This team has fought so hard all season, and now they’re just one step away from bringing the trophy home. We couldn’t be prouder of these players and coaches—what an incredible ride it’s been! Now it’s time to cheer louder than ever and show the world what Buckeye Nation is all about.
Let’s finish this, Ohio State!
The thing is I can’t figure out what Buckeye Nation is all about. We are talking about a fanbase with the dubious distinction of having had guys make credible death threats against the head coach and his family.
I can’t fathom why Ryan Day would put himself through death threats and misery to coach a football team on behalf of people like Josh Williams. It is beyond me. I genuinely don’t understand why Day didn’t quit the minute he won the national championship.
If I were him, I would have written a four-word resignation letter (“fuck y’all, I’m out”), printed it on a flag, and stuck it in the center of Ohio State’s toilet-shaped football stadium. Then I would have fled to the mountains before Josh Williams could sic the cops on me, not that it would matter because I’d simply make my escape as they repeatedly pepper spray one another in the face on accident.