This is getting out of control. First it was Jerry Sandusky, using his power and access as an assistant coach at Penn State University to sexually abuse young boys. Then Dr Larry Nasser, the gymnastics team doctor at Michigan State University made Trump look like a rank amateur by inappropriately touching literally hundreds of young women gymnasts under the guise of “examinations.” And now, Dr Richard Strauss, team doctor for multiple sports programs at Ohio State University stands accused of inappropriately groping scores of male athletes.
If I were raising my four daughters again, I’d seriously consider home schooling, followed by online college courses for them. Even if your children manage to make it through high school without being slaughtered in their classrooms, you can’t afford to heave a sigh of relief, because now apparently you have to worry about them being sexually exploited by their team coaches and physicians. Thanks God my girls are all fully grown, and out in the real world, where they only have to deal with the normal dangers and pitfalls of life from strangers they aren’t brought up to trust and look up to.
The OSU athlete sex abuse scandal is national news because Teabagger GOP House Rep Jim Jordan’s name has come up in the mix. Turns out that Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach for several of the years when Strauss was treating the training room as his personal stalking grounds. And this is bad news for Jordan.
This is bad news because these are not “anonymous” allegations. Multiple student athletes are speaking out on the record, including several wrestlers from Jordan’s tenure, and some of them are pointing the finger right at Jim Jordan. Several have talked of the situation as being an “open secret” in the locker room, including gallows humor about knowing that if you went in to see “The Doc,” you were gonna get groped. At least one former wrestler stated that he personally complained about the doctors behavior directly to Jordan himself, and that Jordan took no action. At one point the wrestler exclaimed in frustration, “The Doc’s locker was right next to Jordan’s for God’s sake!”
Like Penn State before it, now that the rat is out of the bag, the university is taking this seriously. They too have hired a high powered law firm to conduct an independent and impartial investigation. And here is where the wicket starts to get sticky for Jim “Don’t call me Michael!” Jordan. The university is well aware of the notoriety of their former assistant wrestling coach, and stated that they had requested Jordan come in for an interview, but had received no response.
Jordan has obviously spent too much time with his nose up Trump’s ass, because he’s using the same crisis management tactics. In a statement released by his office, not only did he deny any knowledge of Strauss’ activity, he angrily denied that he had received any communications from the university, and demanded that they provide proof of their attempts to contact him.
Jim Jordan is obviously a complete idiot. OSU knows that they are going to be under an electron microscope in this scandal, especially with a high profile figure like Jordan involved. Does he honestly think that they tried to call him without making a phone log of the attempt, or maintained a copy of the email for their records? This is not congress Jordan is dealing with here, OSU knows that there is going to be strict accountability required, and they are going to cross every “t” and dot every “i”. There would be little benefit for the university to claim they had reached out to Jordan if they didn’t, and I have little doubt that they can easily prove it, making Jordan look deceptive right off of the bat.
If there’s one thing we should have all learned by now, through repetition if nothing else, it’s that scandals like this take on a life of their own. If only one wrestler accuses Jordan of covering up, he can play “he said, he said,” and possibly escape the hangman’s noose. But if multiple athletes all claim they told Jordan about it, or if another staff member admits to having discussed this with Jordan, he’s going to go down. People, even Republicans, have reached their limit at having people in positions of authority abuse their children, or look the other way, enabling others to do so.
*Full Disclosure* Covering politics, I dislike a whole lot of people, but Jim Jordan is one of a very small, select group that will make me switch channels and watch pharmaceutical commercials before seeing them on screen, KellyAnne Conway, Louie Gohmert, and Trump Whisperer Steve Cortez filling out the list. If Jordan is not involved, so be it, I’ll just continue to loathe him for all of his other faults. But I’m a vindictive bastard. And if Jordan was involved, his disgraced exit from congress won’t be enough for me. I want him on the streets, because people won’t even give him a quarter for cleaning windshields at stop lights. I’m sick of it, all of it. There’s a special place in hell, next to the noisy ice machine, for people like Paterno and Jordan, who turn their backs on the innocent and vulnerable.
What kind of asinine headline is that? Joe Paterno didn’t accost anyone, nor did he witness anyone being accosted.
I suggest you do some research Mr. Murphy instead of parroting the false narrative about Joe Paterno. Even the prosecutor said there was no evidence that JVP did anything wrong. However there IS evidence that Louis Freeh and the NCAA colluded in a frame up to enrich themselves. I thought you were at least one journalist who took the time to get facts; instead you have produced more false news and further damaged the reputation of a good man.