Not sure who's been following this story but I don't remember a thread on it. In any event, the story of long term sexual abuse of Michigan players by the longtime team doctor, is not going away. He is dead and iconic coach Bo Schembechler is dead, but the story seems to be getting worse. Tomorrow a news conference will be held by Bo's adopted son, along with two former players, in which he alleges he was abused by the doctor and told his father, who did nothing. If true, ugh. I have a feeling that the statute to Bo on the Ann Arbor campus is coming down and Schembechler Hall is going to be receiving a new name sooner rather than later.
Here's the link:
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/c...se/7621845002/
Sonuds so similar to Penn State and Joe Paterno.
Michigan, Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State. Not sure what to make of this trend but it is most disturbing wherever it happens.
I grew up in Michigan and hated Bo. I don’t intend this to make light of the situation, but this is the guy that fired Ernie Harwell. It’s way down the scale of evil from this but is the sort of head scratching thing that makes you wonder what the hell is going on with someone.
His son? This may be worse than PSU.
I grew up in Ann Arbor in the 1960s and 1970s and lived four doors down from Don Canham and about a half-mile from Bo. Even as a football-obsessed kid, I was quite aware that Bo was a mule-headed, inside-the-box thinker, though thankfully less so than Woody Hayes. That said, from that story...I don't know what to think. There were a lot of physical exams of athletes in that era that look a lot like abuse to today's view but were not viewed as such at the time. To wit, when I tried out for sports teams at my Ann Arbor junior high school, I and all the other boys were subjected to a hernia exam, which entailed dropping your pants, turning your head, and coughing while a medico palpated your testicles. It seems a little weird, but we didn't think too much of it at the time. My dad always said that a physical in the 1950s entailed a barium enema, utilized to facilitate x-rays of the colon. All this makes me think that, unless it was done in weird situations or absurdly often (the wide receiver's claim of 10 rectal exams in four years sounds absurd), some of this could be that we're just looking at things with a different lens. The past is another country.
I went back to Ann Arbor in 2019 and was struck, as in the past, how modest were the homes of Canham and Schembechler....big money had not come to college sports yet.
Truly it is. Who are we to pass judgment on the invasive rectal proclivities of our forefathers? One man's (and one boy's) guttural shower flesh slappings might just be the applause of a Greek chorus in days of yore. How can we really know if those boys in Mr. Gacy's basement weren't just insufferably rude to that upstanding Jaycee. Judge not, lest you be judged with your finger in the proverbial cookie jar.
I’m just sick right now.
Matt Schembechler apparently has some issues as to his credibility, per my reading on some other sites and Michigan's boards. However, that may not matter so much given the fact that a number of Bo's former players are alleging not only the abuse, but that Bo knew.
One interesting impact, or potential impact, of this is the status of Jim Harbaugh, who was a Michigan QB for four years and I think a captain as well when this was allegedly going on. If it was going on, and it was as widespread as is claimed, then it might be hard to imagine Harbaugh not knowing about it. Which would then make his statements from last week supporting Schembechler problematic to say the least.
It can happen anywhere.
When I was at Duke in the early 80s, there was a creepy doctor at student health that I heard stories about from other guys.
Essentially that below the belt exams were given when the patient's complaints were respiratory in nature.
In the current environment of the time, I doubt most guys would have reported anything and I never heard of anything happening to this doctor.
I went to this doctor a couple times as you had no choice when you went to student health.
He never did anything inappropriate to me, but he was very creepy.
Bo was from that era when coaches wanted players to "tough" everything out, no matter how dreadful.
The doctor was still there, which is really what's relevant.
Edit: And Lloyd Carr was a Bo assistant, and actually won a national championship (which Bo never did). These predators don't just stop. I imagine we'll be hearing about him soon enough, but I guess there's just something about the name Schembechler.
Is this statue in jeopardy?