Matt Schembechler to hold press conference tomorrow, not good
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2021/06/09/schemb…
He's going to say he told Bo he was abused by Dr. Anderson when he was 10 years old. Will be joined by Daniel Kwiatkowski, a Michigan Football player from the late 70s who was abused by Anderson 4 times, and Gilvanni Johnson who says he was treated and abused by Anderson 15 times.
This is awful and heart breaking. My only thoughts are with the victims, no one else matters as much as they do.
Stfu. Anderson was a doctor. As a doctor it’s our responsibility to not take advantage of the patient-doctor relationship. You’d be shocked to know how much leeway pts give doctors because they trust me to do the right thing for their health.
How the fuck are you victim blaming children and adolescents? What the fuck is wrong with you?
Surely you're not suggesting that 800+ former students and athletes took a look at the PSU and MSU settlements and thus conspired to build a similar case against U-M, knowing the alleged perpetrators were all dead and thus in no position to rebut their allegations?
Please tell me this is not your argument.
Yeah, that's a weird argument. How do you know they didn't tell their parents? How do you know none of them stopped going to the doctor?
But also ... I accept that at 10 years old you were uniquely able to reject your parent's instructions, but ... most kids are not. Most 10-year olds try do what adults tell them to, and when adults dismiss their complaints as "whining," or suggest that the kids just need to be tougher, kids try their best to follow their instructions.
Therein is the tragedy, no? That the adults they asked to help them failed to do so.
This is literally what's called "blaming the victim."
Finally, please reject the suggestion that any former football players, whose entire self-image is based on being "tough," would purposefully admit to trauma arising from sexual assault for a few bucks. I'm not saying it never happens, but ... good God, man, do you know how much courage it generally takes to come forward with a revelation like this?
1. Probably going to get hit with penalties like Penn State did, expect financial penalities, bowl ban, loss of scholarships
2. This gotta be Harbaugh's last year with the tire fire coming
3. Need to get rid of Schissel and this soft administration cuz they will keel over and let the NCAA
**** us harder than they did Penn state with how soft as charmin they are. I don't see them fighting the penalties and instead taking it even worse and accepting it and putting the football program
back even further. You think PSU had it rough, Michigan is going to get it worse here.
I disagree, there will be no sanctions.
The only thing in question is what the administration did when they found out about this in 2018. They aren't going to punish Michigan Football for things that happened 20-55 years ago.
The only thing I hate about all of this is the accused are not here to defend themselves. That is one of the great tenets of our justice system. I'm not saying we don't believe the accusers. But our society is on a slippery slope if accusations without chance to answer are enough to presume guilt.
They're not here because this was allowed to continue for decades unpunished and then they died before the coverup was exposed.
Why did the victim's wait 50 years to expose this?
A lot of victims of sexual abuse -- including this one -- cover it up, deny it, rather than put themselves in the fairly thankless position of victim. They went to the authority figure they were told to trust, who told them to suck it up and stop bothering him. How much rejection should they be forced to ask for, in what is an embarrassing story to tell even once? I have no problem believing they swallowed their pride and hurt and tried (with, apparently, mixed success) to move on with their lives.
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.
The WH report as it pertains to Schembechler doesn't remotely support the conclusion of a "coverup," with respect to him, and the latest claim of anything to do with him is in around 1983. WH also interviewed a bunch of witnesses and wrote a footnote saying that "Multiple University personnel who worked with Mr. Schembechler told us that had he been aware of Dr. Anderson’s misconduct with patients, he would not have tolerated it." Two of the four people who reported something to do with Schembechler did not agree to be interviewed by Wilmer. There's really no reason to conclude that Bo somehow had clear knowledge of what Anderson was up to, or its scope. He heard random snippets from three players over about seven years, none after 1983, none remotely actionable on their face. He told one of the players he'd tell Canham, and there's no evidence that he did not in fact tell Canham. Neither of them, of course, is still around to be interviewed and to add their accounts to the factual record.
Basically, to be informed on this topic, you have to read the actual report for yourself and focus on the actual facts, who was interviewed, what they said, and what other witnesses said about the same thing -- and read it with an unbiased, completely open mind. You can't depend on news reports and you absolutely, positively can't depend on internet chat boards.
The WH report as it pertains to Schembechler doesn't remotely support the conclusion of a "coverup," with respect to him, and the latest claim of anything to do with him is in around 1983.
The report indicates Bo knew.
I think the majority of posters are expressing outrage that Bo did nothing about it.
If you think a coverup is different than doing nothing, that's fine and certainly an interesting discussion for another time. But don't act like the report clears Bo either.
Bo knew.
This isn't a criminal trial. I'm allowed to decide Hitler was a monster without giving him an opportunity to defend himself. I'm willing to presume his guilt.
“…the accused are not here to defend themselves. That is one of the great tenets of our justice system“
Wait, what? Are you under the impression that Bo is facing criminal charges and possible incarceration?!
Lloyd Carr & Gary Moeller were both coaches at Michigan during this time. Is anyone going to ask them what went on?
I find it hard to believe, that Millie stood by and allowed Bo to abuse her son physically. She also would follow up and insist on Anderson being fired. My gut feeling is Matt is piling on and looking for easy money at his family’s expense. All the other cases must be substantiated and dealt with accordingly. But, Matt’s story doesn’t pass the smell test.
Others have touched on it already, but there's no way in hell Bo had enough juice after ONE SEASON to win a fight with Canham over a doctor Canham would have wanted fired. That rings completely untrue. And what happens with witnesses in the real world is that once they start saying obviously untrue things, one naturally becomes skeptical of other portions of their account.
I have to admit, the timing is really confusing. Bo was in his first season. And Anderson had only been working at the university for three years at this point. Neither seemed to be powerful forces at that time and I don't understand Bo having that much passion to defend Anderson to the point of undermining his wife.
Two games into his first season, Canham already had to angrily tell Bo that his Woody Hayes like behavior on the sidelines would not be tolerated.
1969 Bo did not have enough power and influence to stop Canham from firing ANYBODY.
The only reason Bo (or Canham) would have any loyalty to Anderson qua Anderson is if he was somehow doing something beneficial to football performance, and that would be something like distributing steroids or giving pain injections or pain pills that crossed the line but helped the team somehow. Beyond that, there's no reason they'd even give a shit about the guy and in the pre-internet media age, if they'd fired him, no one would have even noticed, much less cared. There was no potential damage to "the brand" from which they could have been protecting "the brand." He was not Gerry Sandusky, top defensive coordinator, in the Rivals/Internet age. There's no resemblance between the situations.
Because that's what people do in 2021, pretty much everyone is trying to fit this into the "powerful man sells out people entrusted to him to protect himself and his institution" template -- but it doesn't at all fit. Which isn't to say Schembechler may not have done wrong, even grossly wrong.
Actually what people do in 2021 is to look at something like Gilvanni's 15 assaults compared to Daniel's 4 and make it about race. No need for a bigger sample size. And since Bo knew, he's also a racist. That's how the math is done these days.
Sorry, no proof.
People looking for big $$$$ payout (I hear 1 billion - mostly for lawyers) for something that may or may not happened 50 years ago, no evidence.
Everyone accused is dead.
Only 53 of the thousands of people that went through are suing?
Where did you get the idea that only 53 victims are suing? Several hundred are signed onto lawsuits, each will be giving sworn testimony.
Many of the plaintiffs are independently wealthy and don't need the money.
Man what an absolutely horrible take.
Imagine your kid being abused and someone reacting this way. Disgusting.
Wait — you mean all the people on here saying “read the report” have not actually read the report? Classic. Also, Matt’s allegation is even more strange than I initially understood. Anderson wasn’t even involved with the athletic department until the late 70s. Yet, we are supposed to believe that Matt just so happened to be examined and abused by Anderson within months of Bo arriving on campus in 1969? Moreover, we are supposed to believe that even though he was not associated with the athletic department, Bo would intervene with the administration so Anderson kept his job and beat up his son when his son told Bo about being sexually abused by someone Bo hardly knew? Finally, is it true Matt was interviewed by WH when preparing their report? If so, it’s strange this allegation is not in the report if Matt told them about it.
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.'"
That's wrong, Anderson was at the school in the 60s and joined the football team when Bo was hired in 1969.
He did not "join the football team when Bo was hired." His main role was with UHS, and he joined the Athletic Department, not the "football team," "in or around 1967." Bo had nothing to do with the guy being brought on, he inherited him, and he wasn't just the football doctor. During the time the three or four witnesses talk about Bo in the WH report, Anderson was also the UHS director and an instructor at the medical school.
Whatever the university decides what actions to take regarding Schembechler and his legacy, it should not rely on what Matthew Schembechler is alleging. There's more than enough testimony from players to decide how to proceed.
Sure, as long as it's crystal clear that M. Schembechler's claim takes things to a dimension far, far beyond the Wilmer Hale report. No one reasonable would say something like, "Well, based on what the WH report says, it shouldn't be that surprising that he would do something like M. Schembechler claims." They're entirely different things, not remotely following from each other. "Bo didn't pay enough attention to the things he heard about Anderson" is different in kind, not degree, from "Bo's 10-year-old son told him Anderson abused him, and Bo proceeded to punch his 10-year-old son in the face."
100% agree.
At the minimum, I think it's very unlikely that Millie Schembechler would have taken her 10-year old son to a physician whose day job involved health care for college students instead of a normal pediatrician.
What if, and yes I know that's a dangerous game, Matt went to Anderson instead of a normal doc as you say because it was convenient?
Anderson was associated with an elite university that has an elite med school and athletic department. Surely there is cachet in that.
It's quicker -- no waiting for appointments... probably could walk right in.
Bo is god in A2... and also probably a taskmaster from what we are learning as well. What if Bo ordered Millie to do it?
My damn dog is named Bo. Time to change it even tho he is 8 years old. In all serious everything connected to Bo needs to be erased.
This presser is devastating. OMG. Kwiatkowski's story is awful.
DISGUSTED
this is all over the B1G - can't name a school that HASN'T had a recent scandal - I'm sure it's prevalent NOW!
More like a good portion of the B1G East.
By way of comparison, I don't think NW's admissions 'scandal' moves the needle like what's gone on at Staee, Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan.
10 years old. Not that it's any better to be preying on young men, but really shows how callous Bo was about this. Clearly he never even considered passing on the info if knowing his child was violated didn't even bother him.
What did Dr. Anderson have on Bo to make him overlook all of this? Did he have something on Bo to have Bo keep his mouth shut about this? That is pretty sick if Bo truly overlooked his own son being molested to go and get Anderson his job back after Canham fired him. Sick