Dr. Robert Anderson founded the school’s University Health Service before eventually becoming the doctor of wrestling, football, hockey and track teams. He worked at UM from 1968 to 2003, before dying in 2008.
During his time with the school, he allegedly abused hundreds of students, most of whom were young men, according to attorney Parker Stinar. Earlier athletes claimed Anderson would examine her genitals for unrelated problems and injuries.
“What happened to me in that room with Dr. Anderson, I have no words for,” said former San Francisco 49er security guard Dwight Hicks. “I felt I had to suck it. I’ll become a Michigan man. Maybe this is part of it.”
“We have great admiration for all former UM athletes and students who bravely step forward to share their stories,” Fitzgerald said in his email.
“That’s ridiculous,” daughter Jill Anderson said on paper. “My father was a beloved doctor at UM for many years. He was highly respected. Everyone said he treated them with the utmost integrity and care.”
Statute of restrictions has expired, prosecutor said
Many students refused to level their accusations against Anderson out of ‘shame, embarrassment and anger’, said Airron Richardson, the former co-captain of the wrestling team Wolverines and an alternative to the 2000 Olympic team. “As a doctor I am acutely aware of how Anderson violated the trust of his patients and used drugs as his shield. “
He added that Anderson “looked far beyond what was medically appropriate as needed with his research.”
Following a lawsuit filed against the university and its Board of Regents, former athletes will enter into mediation with the university this fall, Stinar said. The university knew of the abuse, the lawyer claimed, but did not act.
“I’m still proud of that university,” Hicks said, trembling, noting that his daughter and brother also graduated from the university. “It means a lot to our family because I thought we were family, but family sometimes forgets that.”
Campus police opened an investigation into Anderson in July 2018 after former athletic athletic director Warde Manuel wrote about abuse experienced in the 1970s. Investigators identified former patients who told Anderson of his alleged abuse and unnecessary exams – most of them in the 1970s, although one account came from the 1990s, the university said.
“The allegations that have been reported are disturbing and very serious,” said University President Mark Schlissel. “We immediately began a police investigation and have fully cooperated with the prosecutor’s office.”
The statute of limitations on the charges has been passed so no criminal charges can be brought, the Washtenaw County Prosecutor’s Office said in February.
Former athletes who came forward
The problem in Michigan was systemic, Wright told CNN earlier. After representing 150 Ohio State athletes in their lawsuit involving Strauss, he finds the Michigan case “extremely appealing.”
At a news conference in February, three former wrestlers, including 2008 Olympian Andy Hrovat, shared stories of all the abuse. Tad Deluca, a wrestler from Michigan from 1972 to 1976, returned to receiving examinations of the penis, hernia and prostate for an extracted elbow, he said.
Students knew the team doctor as “Dr. Drop Your Drawers Anderson.” Deluca complained against his coach, he said, and lost his scholarship.
Hrovat, an All-American who graduated in 2002, reminded teammates that he warned that exams with Anderson “would be strange.”
“Going into a room to know that you are facing this is terrible for me,” Hrovat said. “That’s why it was always in my back that this was not good.”
CNN’s Eric Levenson contributed to this report.
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