Schembechler knew his football players were being molested, told them to "toughen up." | UPDATE: FORCED SPERM SAMPLES
- Thread starter ChiTownLion
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Invited Nebraska fans to unite with us in holding @DesmondHoward accountable.
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Has @DesmondHoward tweeted his thoughts about Bo Schembechler?
Boy, @DesmondHoward sure had a lot to say about your Cornhuskers for wanting to play football last year. And he's had a whole lot to say about our program, as well. Would be a shame if both programs tag-teamed him on twitter. Hit him up here: www.twitter.com/desmondhoward #BoKnew...
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Perhaps its time we fund full page adds in various national newspapers (e.g. NY Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Washington Post, LA times etc...) documenting the egregious abuses at Michigan, Michigan State and OSU while also highlighting the facts exonerating Joe and PSU.
Also demanding that The Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren take appropriate action against the guilty schools, less the Big Ten lose any semblance of credibility due to their apparent lack of concern for the victims and be left to wallow in hypocrisy. Whose in?
By the way, a hearty thanks once again to ChiTownLion for his tireless efforts and skill in exposing the hypocrisy of the Big Ten, Michigan, Michigan State, OSU and media...
Also demanding that The Big Ten Commissioner Kevin Warren take appropriate action against the guilty schools, less the Big Ten lose any semblance of credibility due to their apparent lack of concern for the victims and be left to wallow in hypocrisy. Whose in?
By the way, a hearty thanks once again to ChiTownLion for his tireless efforts and skill in exposing the hypocrisy of the Big Ten, Michigan, Michigan State, OSU and media...
Fascinating idea, @SYRCHAZ. Would love, love, love to see some proposals. I believe we have a Penn State grad who sits on the board of the New York Times...
The football building in her mind which she envisions constituting her lack knowledge which is even WORSE than a lack of intelligence. It's not great to be feeble minded, but its far worse to be capable and unknowledgeable. It's almost the epitome of ignorance. Sadly, this is HER shtick, its how she makes HER money. Don't tell HER this, but I wouldn't be surprised or shocked if many of her Northwestern colleagues see her as a sham to the profession. Lets be frank, she writes for USA Today. Monkeys at the zoo cannot read, but that's the ONLY paper they subscribe to. Maybe its partially a shot at her and maybe sadly so a larger shot at the masses in our country who read this as gospel.
Painful to watch, I would LOVE to see a bigger moment of hypocrisy. Calling the kettle black doesn't cut it, you would have to take the Williams Sonoma factory to help correlate the two. What a silly and stupid little man. He's THE worst. And its true, Kirk isnt that much better.
I'll put $500 in and more if we are being serious.
Flee from the idols of your mothers and fathers when the force and baby yoda kreeshna enters ya life my boy.
What an idiot…still repeating scurrilous lies about Joe.Opinion: If allegations are true, Michigan must do to Bo Schembechler what Penn State did to Joe Paterno
Christine Brennan, USA TODAY
Thu, June 10, 2021, 7:00 PM
There wasn’t a kid in America in the 1970s who loved Bo Schembechler more than I did.
Growing up in nearby Toledo, we had season tickets for University of Michigan football games, so I lived and died with Bo and his team. I shed many a tear when Michigan lost, which happened far too often against Ohio State in the regular-season finale and Pac-8 teams in the Rose Bowl.
Later, when I became a journalist and interviewed Bo on occasion, something whimsical always popped into my head: What would that young girl sitting with her father and siblings in Michigan Stadium have thought of this?
Which brings us to Thursday and the absolutely horrible allegation made by Schembechler’s son Matt that when he told his father he had been sexually assaulted as a 10-year-old boy by Michigan football team doctor Robert Anderson during a 1969 physical, Bo flew into a rage — not against the doctor, but against the boy, punching his son with a closed fist to the chest, knocking him across the kitchen.
Bo Schembechler was Michigan's head football coach from 1969-89.
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“I don’t want to hear this,” Matt Schembechler quoted his father as saying, according to the Detroit Free Press. “Never talk to me about this again.”
Matt Schembechler said Anderson fondled his genitals and digitally penetrated him. “I tried to tell him repeatedly,” Matt said of Bo, “but my efforts earned me a punch in the chest. It was the beginning of the end for our relationship.”
Hundreds of Michigan athletes have accused Anderson of sexually assaulting them, including fondling them and giving them rectal exams even though they came to him complaining of a sore throat, bad elbow or other ailment. Other Michigan students have accused Anderson of giving out draft deferrals from the Vietnam War in exchange for sex acts. Hundreds of men have sued the university for not stopping Anderson. More than 800 cases in all are currently in mediation in federal court.
Only one of those people, though, is Bo’s son. If what he said Thursday is true, it would mean his father not only allowed Anderson to continue sexually assaulting and abusing young people for potentially another 34 years until he retired in 2003, he also perpetrated domestic violence against his young son in his own home. Schembechler died in 2006. Anderson died in 2008.
If it’s true, the University of Michigan must do to Schembechler what Penn State did to Joe Paterno after he ignored Jerry Sandusky’s sexual assaults of young boys. The statue must come down. The football building needs to be renamed. All reverence for the man must cease, replaced by revulsion.
Cancel culture? You bet. If this is true, Bo Schembechler isn’t a legend, he’s a monster.
There has already been one investigation of Anderson’s alleged abuse, but it sounds like another is in order now that Matt Schembechler has told his story to the news media. The default position of Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh so far has been to defend Bo and stick his head in the sand.
That’s not going to work anymore. It’s not just Matt Schembechler; he was joined at the news conference by two former Michigan players, Daniel Kwiatkowski, an offensive lineman from 1977-79, and Gilvanni Johnson, a wide receiver from 1982-86. Kwiatkowski said he was assaulted by Anderson four times. Johnson said he was assaulted 15 times.
“Before my freshman physical, you would hear players joking about having to see ‘Dr. Anal,’” Johnson said. “The exam was very painful. I felt humiliated and confused. I’d never had a physical like that. I told Bo that Dr. Anderson played with my genitals and he put his finger in my anus. Bo said he would check on that with the medical staff. I never heard back from Bo.”
Attorney Mick Grewal, who represents Matt Schembechler and dozens of others in the case, said it bluntly: “Bo knew. If Bo listened to his son, these two gentlemen (Kwiatkowski and Johnson) would not be sitting up here today.”
The horrifying stories these men told strike at the heart of everything Michigan is and has been over the past 50 years: its legacy, its identity, its good name. Bo wasn’t just Michigan football. He was Michigan.
For years, he also was the Big Ten — he and Woody Hayes. Ah, the Big Ten. Look at the massive sexual abuse and sexual assault scandals the conference has given us: Penn State, Michigan State, Ohio State and Michigan. My God, it’s staggering.
What was said by Bo’s son and two of Bo’s players Thursday cannot be ignored. This is not just about Anderson. It’s about Bo. What did he know? When did he know it? How many times was he told?
So many questions, including one more: What would that young girl sitting with her father and siblings in Michigan Stadium have thought of this?
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Michigan can't ignore Bo Schembechler's silence if allegations true
Invited Nebraska fans to unite with us in holding @DesmondHoward accountable.
Has @DesmondHoward tweeted his thoughts about Bo Schembechler?
Boy, @DesmondHoward sure had a lot to say about your Cornhuskers for wanting to play football last year. And he's had a whole lot to say about our program, as well. Would be a shame if both programs tag-teamed him on twitter. Hit him up here: www.twitter.com/desmondhoward #BoKnew...
When I meet a creepy person, as I emerged from childhood, my family taught me to take responsibility for myself. It is my body. There sure all kinds of threats: molesters, hoods, thugs, rapists, drugs, sugar, booze, tv, video games, women…..
i was taught to never be a victim, to never consider yourself a survivor. At age 30 you can no longer blame your parents for anything.
i agree with Bo. Dad isn’t going to be there all the time to protect you. I agree with Joe too. Toughen up, take responsibility for your life and your choices. Of course someone should have called the police. But victim blame several decades later on a person that can’t defend himself is off putting
i was taught to never be a victim, to never consider yourself a survivor. At age 30 you can no longer blame your parents for anything.
i agree with Bo. Dad isn’t going to be there all the time to protect you. I agree with Joe too. Toughen up, take responsibility for your life and your choices. Of course someone should have called the police. But victim blame several decades later on a person that can’t defend himself is off putting
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Yeah, but burn bo and michigan down to the ground just the same.
Watched Outside the Lines this AM, one whole minute segment on UM and Bo, pathetic.
So, the “football building” to which she refers doesn’t exist.
The coverage by ESPN and MSM has been amazing. Oh wait…. 🙄
I guess no one really gives a shit about michigan football.
Sitting in Starbucks enjoying a Cinnamon Dolce Latte and an Almond Croissant. F*ck michigan.
When does kevin warren yell, “All aboard!”, for the b1g moral superiority train to signal the start of deliberations to remove michigan from the b1g?
It is true that a parent isn’t always going to be there for a child, and so the child should be taught to be wary of potential threats and look out for themself. But my agreement with you ends there.
How does “take responsibility for your life and your choices” apply at all to this situation? It wasn’t as if frivolous behavior or poor decisions by these players were a factor in the molestation that allegedly happened to them.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and figure the term “victim blame” was a typo — because it seems you’re using that with regard to Bo, who wasn’t the victim.
And if it’s true that the coaching staff not only ignored the alleged abuse, and protected Anderson’s job, but actually used threats of sending players back for another physical as a motivational/intimidation tactic — well, that just takes this situation all that much farther from a “these players should have looked out more for themselves” type of scenario that you seem to be casting it as. Unless I’ve somehow totally misinterpreted what you’re trying to say.
STRANGER. DANGER.
Except this wasn’t a stranger — the team doctor is supposed to be an authority figure entrusted with the best interest of the players. They weren’t about to confront him themselves in the moment, and were probably initially shocked and confused as to what the hell they had just experienced.
He is still in his basement with seven 72" TV's. One for the BTN, the others for ESPN, FOX1, CBS Sports, OWE Network, LIFETIME, ESPSNU,
I know. Just following up on what parents teach their kids since they won’t always be around.
These um kids thought they could trust handerson and bo. Nope.
Has anyone tweeted Desmond Howard on this? Perhaps this explains his intense reaction to our situation, as you may all recall. One thing we've learned is that the biggest reactions came from individuals with their own skeletons in their closet.
Opinion: Allegations against Bo Schembechler are devastating; so are the stories of abuse
Mitch Albom, Detroit Free Press
Fri, June 11, 2021, 9:23 AM
DETROIT — They say there are three truths in any accusation: the accuser’s, the accused’s, and the actual truth. Two of those were not accessible Thursday, and they never will be.
But one truth was heard.
And it was devastating.
Three men, now in their 50s and 60s, two of them former Michigan football players, the other the son of its most famous coach, sat behind a podium table in a hotel conference room, flanked by lawyers, and recounted, in painful detail, how their young bodies were sexually abused by a former team doctor named Robert Anderson.
“He digitally raped me”…”He caressed my testicles while asking me questions about my sex life”…”They called him Dr. Anal…”
The excruciating details went on. They spoke of being too scared to speak up. Too young to know how to react. Tears formed and words choked as they related multiple accounts of the most brutal betrayal between a doctor and patient.
“He fondled my genitals”…”He molested and violated me”…”I felt humiliated and confused.”
Anderson’s alleged behavior was cringing to hear. But to the accusers, it was only one breach of trust. The other, which may have hurt them more, was allegedly that of the coach, Bo Schembechler.
“Bo knew,” said Daniel Kwiatkowski, a former lineman in the 1970s.
“Bo knew everything,” said Gilvanni Johnson, a former wide receiver in the '80s.
“I understand the reverence people have for my father,” said Matt Schembechler, Bo’s son, “but I know the truth.”
That truth, as told by these three men, was a portrait of ruinous neglect. Bo was accused of dismissing reports of Anderson’s abuse with comments like “toughen up.” Matt Schembechler claimed he was first abused by Anderson in 1969 when Matt was just 10 years old, and when he told his father, “it didn’t go well.” He claimed Bo screamed at him and hit him.
“That was the beginning of the end of (our) relationship. … I hoped my father would protect me, but he didn’t.”
OPINION: If allegations are true, Bo Schembechler is a monster, not a legend, writes Christine Brennan
Matt Schembechler, left, and his attorney Mick Grewal talk with reporters about sexual assault allegations against Michigan doctor Robert E. Anderson on Thursday in Detroit.
A parent's instinct
Protection is at the heart of parenthood, and at the heart of any college coach’s relationship with his players. Coaches go into homes and promise parents their sons will be looked after, that they will be like second fathers to those young men while on campus.This is why Thursday’s news conference was, for those who revered Bo Schembechler, a huge gut punch. For those who loved him more personally, it was too shocking to believe.
These included Cathy Schembechler, Bo’s widowed wife, who, while saying she could not speak to Anderson’s conduct as she didn’t know anything about it, did tell me, “I can speak to the character of my late husband, Bo. From the time we were married in 1993 until his death in 2006, Bo never spoke of being aware of any inappropriate behavior or conduct by Anderson.
“In my opinion, Bo was not aware of this conduct and would not have allowed such behavior to occur, especially to any of his players, family, coaches, or program. If Bo had known of such conduct he would have stopped it immediately, reported it, and had Dr. Anderson removed from the university.”
Meanwhile, Bo's youngest son, Glenn “Shemy” Schembechler, also found the stories hard to believe. "None of us were in that room when those players were talking to Bo," he told ESPN. "The Bo I knew would have taken care of it and found another doctor. It would be that easy."
Others no doubt believe the same. Heck, many, many people want to believe the same. And of course, Bo is not here to respond to these charges, or explain why Anderson was never removed from the university. But the charges against him scream the obvious question: Why would a famous coach, who could have had any doctor he wanted on his staff, ignore such awful accusations in order to keep him?
“The only thing that I can come up with, knowing Bo and how he operated,” Matt Schembechler said, “is that (with that knowledge) he's got the goods on Dr. Anderson, Dr. Anderson's gonna do what he tells him. Kid can’t play? No, Doc, you’re gonna send that kid (out there).”
That theory seems extreme. It suggests that in addition to ignoring sexual abuse charges, Bo was extorting the doctor so that injured players could risk their health?
Former Michigan football player Daniel Kwiatkowski talks about being a sexual assault survivor of Dr. Robert Anderson, longtime team doctor. Anderson would continue his abuse even after Kwiatkowski reported the incidents to then-coach Bo Schembechler.More
How could this have happened?
“I don’t know if I buy that,” said Johnson, who was actually on the team. But what then was the motivation? If you believe that these three and others went to Bo with reports of Anderson’s behavior — and listening to them, it’s difficult not to believe that — what possible explanation could satisfactorily cover Bo permitting Anderson to stay?Could it be the way the players relayed it? Both Kwiatkowski and Johnson admitted they only told Bo once, and were intimidated in even bringing it up, in Johnson’s case “because I was afraid he would pull my scholarship.” Could it be, as some are suggesting, that Anderson lied and defended his behavior to Bo as medically required, and Bo was too myopic about football to question it? Could it be, as others have postulated, that the times were different, that people preferred to bury such secrets, naively wishing they would just go away?
Who knows? But none of those explanations are enough to counter the damage, not given the decades of terrible suffering that the alleged victims detailed Thursday. Johnson spoke of losing two marriages, and long stretches of sexual promiscuity, trying to prove “that I wasn’t a homosexual.” Kwiatkowski admitted to avoiding doctors ever since college “jeopardizing my own health. I’ve (also) found it very hard to have intimate relationships with women.”
There is no measuring what was broken by this apparently demented doctor, who is accused of abusing more than 800 men over his tenure from 1966 to 2003. Anderson died a few years later.
Plain and simple, he was a monster.
But Thursday wasn’t merely about the damage done.
It was about a response.
Former player Gilvanni Johnson, along with another former Michigan football player, said then-coach Bo Schembechler knew of the abuse of longtime team Dr. Robert Anderson but did nothing to stop it or address it.
Time for 'total accountability'
Why now? Many people asked. What do Matt Schembechler and the former players want? All three spoke of wanting to show other victims of abuse that it is OK to come forward. All three also — along with their lawyers — agreed on one thing: The university has to take responsibility for what happened.Not just admit that Dr. Anderson was horrific, as U-M has already done in a recent extensive report, but own up to allowing it to happen. This is why Bo is so critical to the case. If he knew and said nothing, the evil goes from one man’s abuse to a possible systemic cover-up that the university somehow condoned.
“Michigan State, Penn State, Ohio State, Southern California. ... And now Michigan,” said Steven Drew, one of the attorneys representing Matt Schembechler. “How many more do we need?
“We need to have start having total accountability. We need to stop the argument that we are immune from responsibility.
“(It’s) more important than the power, the privilege, the profits … more important even than the brand. The brand needs to be accountability.”
Cynics will say this is legalese for a massive lawsuit and huge financial damages. And one of the attorneys did confirm that they would be seeking damages. Michigan State, you recall, paid out $500 million to survivors in the Larry Nassar abuse suit.
But the questions that arose Thursday should not be centered on money, nor for that matter, on Jim Harbaugh, the current coach and a Bo disciple, who recently said the Bo he knew would never have looked away from an abuse scandal. Several reporters asked the panel about those comments.
“Please don’t focus on Jim Harbaugh,” Matt Schembechler beseeched the media. It’s clear he wants the focus to stay on his father.
“What do you think (Bo) would say if he were here right now?” a writer asked.
“Honestly,” Matt replied, “I could care less what his opinion was … I don’t hate Bo. I just don't like him.”
Bo Schembechler statue outside of University of Michigan's Schembechler Hall in Ann Arbor.
One truth is clear: The pain is real
Now, in the interest of background, it should be noted that Matt Schembechler, who was adopted along with his two brothers by Bo when Bo married their mother, Millie, has referred to Bo as “a horrible human being” whom he couldn’t wait to get away from when he turned 18. Matt once sued his father and U-M claiming they thwarted his plan to make souvenirs of old stadium bleachers. He also co-wrote a scathing magazine piece for GQ magazine about Bo — while Bo was alive — citing the bullying he claims he endured as a child.None of that — repeat, none of that — counters one iota of ignoring sexual assault. The two are not in the same arena. What supporters of Bo are facing now is an internal crisis. Those who knew him well and admired him — and I count myself in that group — are left dumbfounded that a man of such apparent principle and integrity could knowingly permit such an awful string of events.
As Cat Schembechler said, “The allegations that I have read and heard … are not credible based on the Bo Schembechler that I knew and that many others knew as well.”
Were we all wrong? Were we all blind? Is there a piece of this whole story that is horribly missing?
Who knows? Even when the accused and the accuser are alive and facing one another, only two of three truths are made clear. We are all left to wonder about the third, the one most important and most elusive. But we can say this with clarity. Thursday afternoon was real tears, real choking up, and true heartbreak. And the damage done years ago is only just beginning to be measured.
We should start a go fund me campaign.
"Michigan abuse scandal, like Penn State... only real."
jim can f*ck himself.
Just edited the above post to include the full sound bite. Shame, shame, shame.
That does it - take away all their Big Ten championships in the last 15 years. Oh, wait - they don't have any.
Jim Brandstatter is as dumb as he looks - and that’s saying something because he looks like a reddish warthog
