Here's a clickable link OP. Not sure if that's a good thing yet or not but I have a feeling it's not.
Here's a link to the pdf: WH_Anderson_Report - DocumentCloud
Yikes. According to MGoBlog standards circa 2012/2018, we ought to be kicked out of the big ten and have the football program canceled.
That's a 240 page document. Anyone wanna give me some bullet points?
Summary: We need to back a bulldozer up to Schembechler Hall and hook it up to that statue.
Guess we can stop living in the past now eh
Without the past there is no present.
History is an essential part of college football.
That being said, the statue of Bo probably needs to come down. His response to Anderson was..gross.
The fucker couldn't even win a national championship, why is he so revered anyways?
Also have to change the name of Canham auditorium.
He was a great coach? Like, obviously what he did was wrong and it seems appropriate to take down the statue/rename the football building etc but the previous reverence he was accorded was entirely deserved
Canham Natatorium
You can skip Sections I and II as well as the lengthy appendices. Pages 24-71 cover the important aspects. I don't want to summarize because I haven't read it carefully and this is, of course, a fraught issue. But those 47 pages are the ones to read.
Basically Easthope should have known and done something in 1978, 1979, or 1980. Also the University has changed a lot regarding sexual assault and has processes and procedures in place that would prevent this. The report will enhance those processes and procedures. That's all from the conclusion.
Yeah, there's also some stuff like this: " The student athlete told DPSS that he asked Mr. Schembechler “soon” after the exam, “What’s up with the finger in the butt treatment by Dr. Anderson?” According to the student athlete, Mr. Schembechler told him to “toughen up.” The student athlete told DPSS that “you do not mess with Bo, and the matter was dropped.”" (p.51). It's not great.
I'll summarize it for the board.
Bo knew.
We're in the same boat as Penn St, Ohio St and Michigan St. People knew about flagrant continued sexual abuse and did nothing.
USC says hi.
It's definitely not a good look, and I'm all on board with cutting ties to Bo. But the main difference here is that michigan already enacted changes to prevent this from happening again before this came to light.
But these people deserve to have their stories told and deserve compensation for the abuse they suffered. Without question.
That's kinda messed up. I'm guessing Bo just though the kid was complaining about a medical exam but if he'd heard this from different places then it's negligent.
From what I read coaches would threaten players who underperformed that they’d send them to see the doctor so I’m assuming it was a well known thing by everyone.
That's disgusting. I wasn't going to read it but now I guess I have to
Yes, that is BEYOND sick and disgusting!
I read that section a bit more narrowly than you. At pages 50-51, one football player reported that one position coach threatened him with a visit to Dr. Anderson as a motivational tool. However, a single reported threat does not equal a program- or department-wide practice.
That said, WilmerHale's report leads to the almost inescapable conclusion that coaches and staffers knew or should have known about Dr. Anderson's misconduct. It describes a pervasive understanding among generations of student athletes that Dr. Anderson routinely abused his patients. I find it almost impossible to believe that understanding did not percolate upwards. Coaches may not know everything about their players, but they could not be totally ignorant of the persistent and consistent rumors surrounding Dr. Anderson.
This is my initial reaction with just some quick skimming. I didn’t know Bo, but I’ve read enough about him to at least give him the benefit of the doubt up-front. If I read the whole thing in detail and come to the conclusion that he knew it was abuse, then my opinion will change. Also, it still seems different than the Penn State situation. Maybe it’s not. Knowing little boys are being raped in the shower seems different than inappropriate touching during a medical exam, but then again I wouldn’t want to tell the victims that what happened to them wasn’t as bad. I don’t know. It’s all messed up.
You should have waited until you had a chance to actually read the document before commenting.
Jesus
Settlement fund of $800M? Sounds about right given precedents (MSU, USC).
And a lot of talk next year about re-naming Schembechler hall.
I feel awful for the victims.
Can we please stop placing Bo Schembechler in such high regard anymore?
The guy was basically a criminal, low-life who is probably burning in hell. But yea, he knew how to beat OSU, so all bets are off.
All. I have no problem with getting negged, but for those who have, can you explain how Bo is any different than JoePa? According to the report, Bo knew. We make fun of JoePa by saying "Joe knew!". So what's the difference?
If we want to exalt ourselves under the #MichiganDifference mantra, then we really should be ultra critical of Bo S at this point. Any and all reference to him at Michigan needs to be mitigated (but not eliminated).
Joe was alive to face his accusers. Bo's 6th Amendment Rights were not granted him due to the delay in reporting.
What an odd comment. Anderson is also not alive to face his accusers. Does that mean we should let him off easy too?
George Perles was barely alive when this board wanted to hang him over a bogus lawsuit that said he knew about Nassar in 1992. The lawsuit was dismissed because Nassar wasn't even employed by MSU Sports Medicine at that time.
I negged you. My reason was more because of the “hot take” nature of your statement. There is no way you read all the relevant aspects of that report before referring to Bo as a low life criminal.
Does the report say Bo did anything criminal by the standards of his time? If so, happy to take my neg back. If the report says there was nothing criminal but Bo did know and chose not to stop/prevent it, then I would agree that Bo was immoral and hypocritical. It’s not the take that annoyed me, it’s the hotness of it.
If Bo knew something and said nothing than he is in the same level of criminality as JoePa.
Bo won’t get charged with anything because he is dead, but if you’re hung up on the word “criminal” then I can refrain from using it going forward.
I'm probably going to get beat up for this, but here goes.
First, I would be the first to say that Bo is revered way too much in a fashion most successful coaches are. He won a lot of football games. He wasn't anything other than that. I don't need recordings of his speeches or to read anything about his lasting lessons. He was a narrowly focused bully that took advantage of lenient scholarship limits through most of his career. Sounds like he was less of a hitter than Knight or Hayes so there's that.
That being said. I'm still not on board with the equivalence of a guy turning a blind eye on sodomizing children and some creepy doctor that does un-indicated rectal and genital exams. Maybe it's a function of my age and what was considered more standard medical practice at the time. It seems to me these types of exams on men are done way less in the primary care community now than they were. Worried about a prostate? Used to be you'd bet a finger wave. Now, your PCP will order a PSA. Leave the rectal to the urologist. Same if there's a possible genital mass--consult rather than exam. (PCPs seem to do less and less, but that's a gripe for another day.)
However, back in the day in college in the 80s, it seemed like people were standing in line to give rectal exams. I had three in the span of just a few months (one work physical, one for a physical to make money donating my levens, and one because I was having esophageal spasms.) Both physicals came with testicular exams as well. If anyone here currently under the age of 30 has had a rectal exam for a routine physical I'd be surprised. In fact, when the Anderson thing broke I remember trying to think back if it could have been one of those physicals (it wasn't).
I'm not defending Anderson AT ALL. I haven't read all the gory details but enough to know he was a creep that abused his position to do absolutely unnecessary exams for his own gratification. However, having been in sports and having been young in that same time period, I can remember joking with my fellow athletes about having to get these exams. I can absolutely see it being treated by coaches as not as big of a deal as it seems in the current time. However, I can't imagine any time period or scenario that would result in turning a blind eye to what was described in the shower at Penn State.
I'm also not convinced that my point of view many not be completely fucked up based on my own biases because this wasn't done to young women (MSU) vs young men or to children (MSU and PSU)
Edit: And I'm fine with statues coming down, and Bo should take his licks.
So if you didn't read the report, then I'll ask the question. If digital rectal exams were commonplace back in the '80s, was being asked by a doctor to pleasure *him* to the point of ejaculation also commonplace?
And quite frankly, arguing over medical practice 40 years ago completely misses the point. When people felt like having to jerk off a doctor felt weird for *any* symptom they were presenting with, they raised concerns. And those concerns were dismissed out-of-hand, ignored, or laughed out of the building. That's a huge issue when it comes to ensuring patient safety and U-M failed at every turn.
Also, if you would have read the report, you'd note that this happened all the way up until 2001.
Like I said, I didn't read it and only know about unnecessary and un-indicated exams--essentially things that would have been accepted medical practice in the setting of appropriate indications. (Obviously inappropriate in the context of, let's say, elbow pain)
I hadn't heard anything about him asking to be jerked off. Were those things reported to Michigan leadership and ignored as well?
Having read the report (as much as I can stomach) it is clear his behavior goes well beyond my initial impression of "unnecessary exams." And, like most predators, he chose his victims and the degree of his transgressions based on his perceived vulnerability of the patients. It appears a large population of those he abused and in the worst ways were gay students in the late 70s. With the athletes he did unnecessary exams but knew the culture in which they lived (as I described above) where it would be gaffed off.
I'm sorry there is no reason why DREs should be performed on young college males who don't have urinary complaints for which they're visiting the doctor's office.
The only genital exams that these kinds of players should have are for hernias (The finger cough test).
This is gross and disheartening to read regarding figures we held in such high regard.
The difference is Sandusky was a coach on staff. In this case the DR wasnt part of the football staff. Joe knew and kept Sandusky on staff, ans even after he was fired he still had access to all of Prnn St facilities and had is youth camp or whatever. Big difference IMO.
Please read the whole report. Please see how both the indifference and deference exhibited by so many "leaders" in high-level positions allowed a monster like this to grow and destroy hundreds of lives.
Please consider that those whom you may revere most in your life may have complicity in allowing monsters like this to grow and destroy hundreds of lives. Please consider that it's okay to be wrong about your reverence for certain people in your life, and it's okay to see them for who they are - abettors of a monster.
I've posted here before about being a victim of sexual abuse and deciding to withhold every cent that I can control from the Athletic Department until they admit they handled this situation wrongly and apologize. Of course they won't because lawsuits. So I've had to decide just this month to forego season football tickets after 15 years. I've had to forego basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, and countless other events that my family and I have enjoyed over the decades.
But worst of all, I've had to contemplate telling my kids, who are in elementary school, about the reason why we are not going to football games this year. I've told my wife about my reasons and she is in complete agreement. However, when my kids ask why we're not going to football games, I'll have to be honest with them or lie. Since my life up until two years ago has been built upon a lie that I lived, which is that I was *not* a victim of sexual abuse, I'm done lying.
So I have to tell my kids about organizations that overlook the fact that, despite all the warnings, they are harboring and abetting monsters. Monsters who do terrible things to other 14 year-olds like they did to me. Who continue year after year with their behavior because *NOBODY* steps in and says, "this is wrong." (Well, actually, if you read the report, three very important people, including one with whom I've worked directly, and has completely changed my opinion of them after having read the report. edit - But whose raising of red flags was further ignored or defered by "leaders.")
I have to tell my kids that even organizations that inspire awe and excitement like the University of Michigan Athletic Department can be organizations where nobody says, "this is wrong."
So please. Before you comment. Before you think you know the answer...
Please, read the whole report (after page 71 is all appendices - including CVs - anyway).
Edit - Another reason to please read the whole report - these are the instances *that we know about.* The report is careful to acknowledge the volume of responses the received relative to those captured in the report. I would submit that even the volume of responses represents only a portion of the likely total number of victims, due to aging/death, mental decline, desire to not relive the situation, etc.
Thanks for sharing this. I feel for you and all the other students.
Just to clarify, my instance did *not* happen with Dr. Anderson or U-M.
My instance occurred in another medium-sized organization with strong loyalties and a willingness to look the other way.
I might read it all but not sure how much my stomach can deal with. For those who have I have a question though: I never really gave a shit about Bo, but did Lloyd know?
From the report, it doesn't seem like Lloyd is implicated at all.
Excellent point, and since both Lloyd and Gary Moeller are still alive and someone should ask them. Hard for them not to have known as they joined the team 1 year before Anderson transferred over to the athletic department and all three were there for many years! Fucking sad and criminal.
Or Harbaugh?
Anderson died in '08 so the only sense Jim would have known would have been talk among players on the team. And was never in a position of power to do anything about it so I don't care if he knew.
Unless you're referring to Jack.
I looked back at his quote. He denies knowing anything. I’d be interested if anything contradicts that.
The answer is very different now...
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I've been saying this since the JoePa scandal but it still rings true to this day. That scandal showed me that absolutely no university is above this kind of shit. Being a "Michigan Man" doesn't mean shit or make you an inherently better or ethically superior individual.
If any of this involves Bo in any way, if any of this happened on his watch and he knew about it, tear down his statue, remove his name from Schembechler Hall, everything.
To me, being a Michigan Man/person, would mean to take accountability, face the truth, and grow from it. Basically the opposite of what MSU did. It doesn’t mean we are impervious to failure.
reminds me of one of my favorite quotes about honor,
“As if it matters how a man falls down.”
”when the fall is all that’s left it matters very much.”