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Nebraska - Cayman Islands…

Nebraska - Cayman Islands campus

Anderson started working as…

Anderson started working as a team physician for the AD in 1967, per the report, which I presume you've read.

He was fully involved in helping shape AD policy as evidenced by the following passage on page 20 of the report:

"In the late 1960s, Dr. Anderson recommended that a PPE program be instituted for all student athletes (which included only males at the varsity level at that time). In November 1968, Dr. Anderson asked Athletic Director Don Canham to inform 'all coaches that preseason physicals [we]re required,' and to implement a process whereby student athletes were issued 'a card to be turned into the[ir] coach certifying that health approval has been granted.'"

This, along with the, "there…

This, along with the, "there's no proof" and "the perpetrators are not here to defend themselves" arguments, are all forms of victim blaming/shaming.

 

As a victim of sexual abuse (not related to Robert Anderson) who denied that what I experienced at 14 was sexual abuse until I was 40, I can tell you I was prepared to go my entire life without telling anyone for the reasons I cite above - people would ask why I waited 26 years, I didn't have "proof," and I was outside the statute of limitations.

 

The fact that these arguments get thrown out with little care or consideration of victims' thoughts/experiences is only self-serving and doesn't make one iota of difference in terms of making sure this doesn't happen again.

This happens all the time,…

This happens all the time, at U-M and elsewhere. Always involves approval of the Regents; usually involves a substantial sum of money; may require lots of political manuevering in between.

Still doesn't remove the fact that the university has been, and still is, extremely reluctant to learn about these things and do what really needs to be done, which is change the culture. 

U-M refuses to use the research generated by its own faculty demonstrating how effective sexual misconduct practices can be implemented, and then wonders why things like Anderson and Philbert still happen. Until we get out of our own way in this arena and acknowledge that maybe we're not really the "Leaders and Best" when it comes to protecting students and staff.

So if you didn't read the…

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.

Just to clarify, my instance…

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.

Please read the whole report…

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. 

Although it would be nice if…

Although it would be nice if for one damn weekend it wasn't, "ketamine, ketamine, ketamine."

Baffert's always struck me…

Baffert's always struck me as a guy who's secretly a hippie. I'll bet he went with the tried-and-true dosing of a sugar cube. Horses seem to blow the shit all over the place if you ask them to snort it.

Well, looks like Urban…

Well, Urban just bought a house right down the street from Tebow, so looks like he's on it.

God I hope they lose to…

God I hope they lose to Rutgers again in the B1G Tourney. The B1G should make him eat his computer with a spoon and wash it down with a bottle of Spartan Tears, 2012 vintage, if they do.

My guess is Ron Weiser given…

My guess is Ron Weiser given the initials. Don't know what 77 is for - he graduated in '66.

No - after having season…

No - after having season tickets for 18 of the last 24 years, including 1997. But mostly because the AD refuses to do anything about Paul Schmidt, who knew about the shit Robert Anderson was doing. As a victim of a sexual predator myself, I've refused to give another dime to the AD until something happens. I'm perfectly fine if that means never giving another dime for any season tickets, other one-off events, or merchandise.

 

I was already having reservations about renewing last season. The secondary market is shit, and I can barely give tickets away to family and friends when I can't go. That's becoming more frequent now with two kids playing sports that I coach. Also, the games eat up essentially 8 hours of my day if sports don't conflict, and that's if I decide not to drink. And good luck getting anyone to join me when we get a game with rain or bitter cold. So, it's kind of hard to justify sitting alone in four seats for ND 2019 knowing I paid on the order of $1,000 to go to that game (face + seat license) by myself.

 

Call me old fashioned, but after the season Android Lloyd put together in 1997, I guess I started to expect that Michigan would put together championship teams on the regular. After suffering through the worst of the RichRod and Hoke years, and seeing all the ways the AD/booster arrogance has gotten in the way of actually being able to put together a championship program, I thought Harbaugh would turn things around.

 

Seeing the AD's response to whole Anderson/Schmidt ordeal, combined with their seeming incompence in terms of stepping on their own dicks when it comes to football, and not really seeing the value in shelling out thousands of dollars to hope we stay "close," that we are "close," or we may be "close" next year to a championship team, for those reasons, I'm out.

Coke in Space > Speed in…

Coke in Space > Speed in Space

96-23, so Mel remembers…

96-23, so Mel remembers which roads to take back home.

Instead of trying to scrape…

Instead of trying to scrape together money by getting shafted by Ulrichs or the Union Bookstore, Harbaugh should keep the playbook to sell for half-price to a freshman and try his hand at some Always Sunny.

I hear they have the best milk steaks boiled over hard and served with their finest jelly beans.

Fucking 2020, man.

FWIW, the title of this…

FWIW, the title of this thread is a bit incorrect. The tweet indicates a request "...filed with a Big Ten university...." not the Big Ten as an entity as the title says.

Well, he did catch Michigan…

Well, he did catch Michigan Man Jim Abbott's no-no in 1993. That might have been the pinnacle of Matty's baseball career - his aviation career though, really took off (or landed, depending on your perspective) in 2000.

Or who's licking the wrap on…

Or who's licking the wrap on the dirty, nasty shit.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2020/08/06/michigan-recalls-marijuana-product-after-someone-licked-pre-rolls-during-assembly/

As someone who has survived…

As someone who has survived abuse perpetuated by another organzation whose complicity still galls me to this, and knowing the feelings I had toward PSU when they went through this, all I can say is I will not be giving another penny to the Athletic Department until Schmidt is fired and they admit they fucked up all the way around with this.

Being hopefully not naive to the litigious society we live in, I think my second condition is a pipe dream.

So, I'm fully prepared to never give the AD another shred of my money nor support at events until both things happen. If they don't admit that they fucked up all the way around, there is no way I'll be confident that they value protection of student-athletes above the almighty dollar.

Just my opinion and I'm sure the AD is quaking in their boots at the thought of not getting my seat license, season ticket, and sundry one-off ticket purchases.

However, I've been around the U as a student and employee long enough to have seen the U lawyers slow-walk these things until we all conveniently forget about them (again, as a way to protect the almighty dollar). Not this time.

"Pssshhhh, 180. My Maserati…

"Pssshhhh, 180? My Maserati ate your Dodge for breakfast."

-Joe Walsh, probably

YUSS!!!

 

BRB, gonna go…

YUSS!!!

 

BRB, gonna go dig out my 286 running DOS 5.0 so I can fire up some Wolfenstein 3D!

The first time I heard the…

The first time I heard the opening riff to Smells Like Teen Spirit, something in me was changed forever. Nirvana got me through some very dark places in my life, and ironically, Cobain's words actually brought me out from depths where I contemplated suicide.

 

I was so gutted when he died, but when doing a lot of retrospective research, it's surprising he didn't kill himself much sooner.

 

"Isn't me, have a seed
Let me clip, dirty wings
Let me take a ride, cut yourself
Want some help, please myself
Got some rope, have been told
Promise you, have been true
Let me take a ride, cut yourself
Want some help, please myself"

I can empathize with your…

I can empathize with your situation, and am happy to provide a bit of advice. A lot of my anger and actions toward my children came, I discovered, from a past history of abuse, which I've written about on a previous thread here. However, I continue to realize that my father's anger toward me (and my grandfather's anger toward him) also had an effect on my demeanor. Through continuing therapy and other practices, I've finally come through the other side of being angry all the time.

It was only through therapy and a lot of study around mindfulness that I was able to be at peace with my anger. And if you want one soundbyte, it's this: For so long, I saw my anger as something to be controlled. What I'm realizing is, I can never control my anger; I have to be okay with having angry feelings and work through them in a different way.

A meditation teacher who I highly respect puts it this way - think of any emotion as a pattern of sensations in the body. Try to be still and learn what those sensations are when you're feeling a specific emotion, and be at ease with those sensations. Through time, you can start to connect those sensations to the ways in which you react to them, which can begin the process of transformation. As I started to really focus on what would happen in my body when I'd get angry, I was able to gradually be okay with what was happening. (In my case, the bodily sensations were also the same as those I experienced during my episode of abuse, so through counseling, I've been able to connect a lot of things mentally, in ways which my brain had been ignoring previously.)

Anyway, that's probably an over-simplistic way of describing my 40+ years of life, but the point is, try to not focus on controlling your anger, but rather with what is happening in your body at the time you're angry. If you need to take a walk, leave the house, scream into a pillow, whatever, in order for connect with those bodily sensations until they subside, that can also be helpful. However, I cannot say enough about finding a trained professional who can help you work through your anger, especially if you feel like it might be affecting you or your loved ones' health and safety. A lot of them are working virtually these days, and they can be immensely helpful.

 

If you're into reading about what I've just described, as well as working through some thought and behavioral exercises that will help drive a lot of this home, I'd highly recommend Siegel and Hartzell: Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive.

I liked The Last Policeman…

I liked The Last Policeman trilogy by Ben H. Winters. It's pre-apocalyptic but is also a police mystery. 

 

The entire trilogy would fit nicely in your three weeks off.

This is why we all need to…

This is why we all need to be looking out for our families, friends, and neighbors at this time.

 

If you're fortunate to have a company that allows you to work from home, and you have older children, offer to watch a neighbor's kids who has to work. Offer to get your elderly neighbors' groceries from the store, run errands for people who can't do so. Try to refer those who rely upon group gatherings like AA/NA or psychotherapy to remote access resources. Any little thing to make someone's life seem a bit less chaotic.

 

This isn't a left or right, Christian or Jewish, Michigan or Online State University issue. This is a health issue and all of us should want to be healthy.

When this thread popped up…

When this thread popped up this morning, Memento was my immediate answer.

Unless of course your ex…

Unless of course your ex trolls MGoBlog and you start a thread (with a correct title) to have her pick you up because you're drunk and shouldn't drive.

 

All the MGoPoints if she shows up with White Castle.

Bummer. Losing 8-7 is a lot…

Bummer. Losing 8-7 is a lot better than losing 7-1 like last week, though. Fingers crossed for the rest of the series. 

Well, never thought that…

Well, never thought that MGoBlog would be therapeutic for me, but here we are, and thanks y'all.

 

To the comment about perpetrators realizing the error of their ways when they get caught, that's what a rational person would think, and I myself thought that for a while. But in my case, what happened to me was in the early 1990s and perpetuated for an unknown amount of time. (But, given my discussions with other kids at camp that week, he had an MO.) Then, in 2009, Sick Fuck forgot to wipe a laptop with the incriminating video when he donated it to his church.

What really got me though, was his fucking lawyer arguing at sentencing that this was a one-off, he was a respectable, church-going person who didn't deserve to have his reputation besmirched by this incident. Ergo, he should be kept off the Sex Offender Registry.

That's when I almost kicked my computer in the balls and scoured the internet to find the case docket, contacted the investigator, and told him my story. He mentioned they had heard stories similar to mine, but the camp was in a different county than the video incident and the statute of limitations had expired.

I also found out that he was still working with his church in the 10 years post-conviction, specifically on the church directory. Part of his job in that role was to photograph families, even those with children. The investigator agreed that this was probably not a good decision on the part of the church, given is status on the Registry. Well, in the last year, he seems to have been booted from that church. But who knows where and when he'll rear his ugly head again, and I shudder to think about what that might entail.

 

While I agree that it is…

While I agree that it is great that these things are uncovered, there is still the serious issue of the victims' shattered lives.

Speaking from my own personal experience at 14 years old (unrelated to this particular instance), what happened to me happened at a crucial point in my life developmentally. What happened to me caused me to rethink everything I'd been told by my parents up to that point.

Besides disclosing this first to my therapist at age 40, then immediately thereafter to my wife of 10 years, the only other person who knows is a sheriff's detective whom I contacted to tell my story after I uncovered a 2009 news article about the individual who did this to me. This was 10 years after the fact, so the statute of limitations had run out, but the detective disclosed to me that during their investigation, they "heard about" situations similar to mine, but were never able to prove them.

What happened to me led me to, among other things: quit playing sports altogether; quit acting in plays (which was my lifeblood at that point); start smoking; start drinking heavily, and as a means to pass out; start doing drugs - light, heavy, and everything in between; turn everything negative in my life into another data point to feed my self-loathing; get angry to the point where I was termed a "loose cannon" and seriously worried about hurting other people; try but continually fail to have dating or serious relationships with women; pour myself into work in an unhealthy manner; hoping and praying that I'd die before age 25 (or 35 if "god" is a cruel bastard).

Through over a year of therapy, I've realized that my anger and self-loathing, together with all of the other things I mentioned above, stem directly from that incident that happened at summer camp at age 14. For 26 years, I thought I was flawed and unworthy of loving or being loved. For 26 years, I longed for ways to die (and contemplated suicide on more than one occasion). For 26 years, I assumed that I had brought all of this upon myself.

Thankfully, I found a refuge in therapy, meditation, exercise, and cultivating the healthy relationships in my life.

However, there's a part of me that will never get over what one sick motherfucker did to me and countless other teens over the decades where he was in a position to take advantage of us. That piece of shit ruined my life and never cared to even say thanks for what he took from me.

The positive things I've been focusing on for the last year have helped me put what happened behind me, and forgive myself for shutting out what happened to me for 26 years while having it still manifest itself through destructive behaviors.

And while what happened to that sick fuck in 2009 landed him a brief stint in jail and an entry on the Sex Offender Registry, he still roams free. He still gets to enjoy his life with or without a guilty conscience. While I have to spend my time and money working through what happened to me, and think about how I talk to my kids about avoiding the type of situation I found myself in, while at a seemingly innocuous place like summer camp.

So I agree that it is great that things like this come to light, but I always visualize kicking my perpetrator, and others who do these things to innocent victims, in the balls so hard that they choke on their own piss. And that's something that I don't think will ever go away.

Ah, I've always wondered…

Ah, I've always wondered what the embodiment of SPARTAN SWILL looked like.

Now I know.

"And putting him in that…

"And putting him in that situation I think excites absolutely nobody..."

 

Pete, meet RCMB. RCMB, Pete.

Wait, what!?

For once, Pete…

Wait, what!?

For once, Pete didn't have something to say about anything related to football and the state of Michigan? Gonna have to watch out for flying pigs on my commute home.

All Bert heard was "WAFFLES"…

All Bert heard was "WAFFLES" and now he wants the job more than ever.

Charlie Weis awaits Beekman…

Charlie Weis awaits Beekman's phone call with bated breath.

I love the thread on RCMB…

I love the thread on RCMB asking for reasons why Bert is not a good hire. There's also a thread asking about Brady Hoke to coach the team.

Looks like mental defects from inhaling too much couch smoke might be starting to manifest in E.L.

If I had the option to walk…

If I had the option to walk away from $4.3 million to preserve my integrity or keep it and wait for the 84-day news cycle to forget about me, I sure as shit wouldn't be posting on MGoBlog about my decision or the reasons for it.

"Pride comes before…

"Pride comes before discovery. Which is a bitch."

-Mork D'Giornio, probably

Man, that sucks. RIP Kobe…

Man, that sucks. RIP Kobe. Far too young. 

OP, I'd bang you twice for…

OP, I'd bang you twice for the Throwdown at the Joe nostalgia.

If the University is calling…

If the University is calling in outside counsel after an internal investigation with DPSS, which led to an "immediate investigation" on outside counsel's part, there might be something serious afoot.

 

Trust me. The lawyers in U-M's OGC are not cut-rate strip mall rejects who landed in academia. They could be internal counsel at a Fortune 500 company no problem. If their counsel launches an investigation that leads to administrative leave over the weekend with the mass email on Wednesday afternoon, this can't be small potatoes.

 

They are likely getting out in front of something.

I'm not familiar with Madrid…

I'm not familiar with Madrid/Sevilla, but my wife and I spent two weeks in Europe on our honeymoon and we spent all two weeks in the following locales - Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Cinque Terra, Amsterdam.

 

I would echo the comments about not spreading yourself too thin. Like I said, we had 15 days to explore basically four areas and it still wasn't enough. And we had a significant travel delay that cut our time in Barcelona short by a day-and-a-half. We were traveling during the major volcanic activity in Iceland and our flight from Paris to Barcelona was canceled. We had to scramble and got the last tickets on an overnight train, which was subsequently delayed in the middle of the night due to cows deciding to camp out on the tracks.

 

Europe is (IMHO) best seen on foot, and if you're a like-minded traveler, I shudder at the prospect of spending 4 days on a tour bus or in lines at major tourist spots that tour companies tend to frequent. We enjoyed the time on the train seeing the French countryside, which we otherwise wouldn't have. But we were bummed because we had to forego a lot of the lesser-known sights in Barcelona we planned to see due to effectively losing two days.

You must live in or near my…

You must live in or near my old hood, presuming Wangler still lives in the same home he has for the last 10+ years.

Neato!

I've been gravitating toward…

I've been gravitating toward non-fiction over the last few years, and here are a few of my latest reads in that genre:

  • Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey (read this during my recent trip through southwestern Utah)
  • The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantu (somewhat political as it's written by a border patrol agent but it is riveting)
  • The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers by Maxwell King. This book was really good for giving the chronology of Mr. Rogers' life and how his upbringing shaped his life and career, but the editing was horrible. There are whole paragraphs that are repeated, and not once but many times. It's like they never revised it past a second draft before going to press.
  • Flyboys: A True Story of Courage by James Bradley. I read this after the passing of George H.W. Bush since I was only a teenager when he was president and didn't know about this phase of his life.
  • The White Darkness by David Grann. Picked this up since I *loved* Killers of the Flower Moon and it was awesome. Short, easy to read, with high-quality photographs. Tells the story of a recent attempt to cross Antarctica.
  • How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan. I knew there was a reason I've always loved LSD and psilocybin. Because science.

Enjoy!

Lions Mission Statement:

Lions Mission Statement:

"If there's one thing we do right, it's doing things poorly."

But the real unanswered…

But the real unanswered question is - did they retain the pencil?

 

That's the most important part of this gimmick.

I'm going to dedicate my…

I'm going to dedicate my life to figuring out what kind of juju Bobby Layne was into, so I can use it to my advantage from time to time.

Yet.

Yet.

Prime Members get free paper…

Prime Members get free paper bag with eye holes.