Today, Explained - Wrestling with Ohio State

Episode Date: August 7, 2018

Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan wants to be the next Speaker of the House, but a pack of wrestlers could be blocking his path. Corky Siemaszko broke the story for NBC. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get into today's show, a quick reminder that Squarespace can help you build a website. Whether you're looking to launch a passion project or showcase some of your work or sell some stuff, whatever it is, you can check out squarespace.com and find a whole bunch of templates to help. And you can use the offer code EXPLAIN to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain. Sometimes a reporter reads a story and it triggers an idea for another story. It's Corky Shemashko. I'm a reporter with NBC News Digital. A few months ago, Corky was reading about a sex scandal in Ohio. I was looking for a story in the Columbus Dispatch when I stumbled upon the story from May 3rd about the investigation into Dr. Richard Strauss, who was the team physician for the wrestling and other teams at Ohio State for many years.

Sexual misconduct allegations, 40 years in the making at the Ohio State University. Officials say the alleged misconduct happened in the mid-1970s to late 1990s. Ohio State is investigating a former trainer for the Buckeye wrestling team, the trainer Dr. Richard Strauss. Dr. Strauss died in 2005. Now, university officials say the attorney general will use resources from the Bureau of Criminal Investigation to help look into the allegations. Corky nearly got through the whole story before something struck him.

And I got to the very bottom and there was a quote from Congressman Jim Jordan, who was an assistant wrestling coach at one time. And it was a pretty strident quote saying basically, I had not heard about any type of abuse at all. No one reported any type of abuse at all. No one reported any type of abuse. And I noticed in the story there was no response to that from any of the wrestlers. So I started calling all the wrestlers and next thing you know, I got a national story. Two former Ohio State wrestlers told NBC that Jordan knew that the doctor was abusing members of the wrestling team he coached. Jordan, a two-time NCAA wrestling champion, told reporters Wednesday that he never saw or heard about any abuse while working at Ohio State in the late 80s and 90s. Well, I started calling wrestlers.

I used yearbooks and things like that to get some idea of who were the wrestlers at the time. I called the whistleblower as well. And actually, you know, when I called the whistleblower, his reaction was, oh my God, you know, somebody finally is calling us. I think he and the other wrestlers who had reported to the Ohio State that what happened to them were sort of afraid that this would be buried. I mean, nobody was taking much interest in it. And all of a sudden, you know, the story happened and suddenly everybody's taking an interest in it.

Everyone's taking an interest in it because of Representative Jim Jordan. Jordan has said he wants to be the next Speaker of the House after Paul Ryan, and he's got a lot of support. The president hugged and showered praise on him at a rally this weekend in Ohio. A quirky story about what Jim Jordan may have known at Ohio State isn't going away. The allegations against Dr. Strauss is that he used the ruse of giving athletes physicals as an excuse to molest them. I've had physicals before, but none that were like this. He had me lay down on the table.

I started pushing around on my stomach. Does this hurt? Does this hurt? Does this hurt? And I was like, no, no, no. The next thing you know, he starts pulling down my pants. And, you know, he also, you know, would take long showers with the team for no apparent reason. And a wrestler by the name of Mike DiSabato, who was among those who says he was molested by Dr. Strauss, basically went to Ohio State and said, you know, there's a bunch of us who were molested. You guys need to investigate. It was an uncomfortable joke that Doc would and wanted to give you a genital exam every time you saw him

Mike DeSavaro he was also a longtime friend of Jim Jordan and his brother Jeff. I know Jim knew about What I call the deviant Sexual atmosphere that we were how do you know we all had conversations? Jim was more like a big brother than a coach. It was something that we were exposed to. We all had conversations. Jim was more like a big brother than a coach. It was something that we would discuss on a regular basis, mainly with nervous banter, locker room banter. And before Mike DiSabato went to Ohio State, he went to Jim Jordan and asked Jim Jordan for help. He said, you know, I'm going to be doing this. I'm going to be telling them about this. He sent him an email saying, you know, we need to we need to do something about this.

And, you know, it's about time there was reckoning here. And he did say, I just want to be left out of it, which I didn't I didn't argue with at the time. So Mike DiSabato went ahead and informed Ohio State. Ohio State, to his credit, took it seriously and pretty much immediately launched an investigation. The law firm running the investigation conducted more than 200 interviews with former students and staff about the allegations. Ohio State also confirmed an additional 100 or so people plan to do interviews with the local prosecutor's office.

Tell me a bit about the wrestling culture at Ohio State. What is wrestling like there as a sport? Well, wrestling is a big deal in Ohio, and especially at Ohio State. And some of the best wrestlers from around the country are like small-town kids from Florida and Ohio and Pennsylvania, and they come there on scholarship. And if you're a wrestler, that's the place you want to be.

It's a sport that requires a lot of discipline, and it requires that the wrestlers pay, they put a lot of faith in their coaches. They're the kind of people that take orders. They don't question orders. And that, in some ways, made them very vulnerable to what happened to them. When you come in and you got a scholarship at The Ohio State University, you don't want to start any problems.

I didn't do nothing, probably because I was scared. Don't forget, this is like 20 years ago, and you know, before a Me Too movement happened, I mean, people just didn't have the vocabulary, and certainly not these wrestlers, didn't have the vocabulary to explain what was happening to them. Because to come out and say, I'm a victim, is like the hardest thing in the world for these guys, and it's completely understandable. Do you get the sense that some of them were seriously traumatized by this? Oh, yeah.

I never, ever saw myself as a victim. It's hard for me to sit here today. I don't want this to ever have to happen to anybody else, ever. And the trauma is being repeated now because for a lot of these wrestlers, this is stuff that they haven't even told their wives or kids or families about. Oh, my gosh. You know, I mean, it's all coming out now. I mean, I've talked to a couple of wrestlers who said, you know, thanks for taking the time to talk to me,

and now I've got to go tell my wife what happened to me. And, you know, I've had a conversation with several who have said, you know, it makes you question your masculinity. And to make matters worse is that the critics of the wrestlers, some of the wrestlers who have come out have told me that they've been subjected to taunts of, well, why didn't you do anything about it? Why didn't you break this guy in half? I mean, Richard Strauss was a middle-aged man, a thin wisp of a man that these guys could have broken in two. But they didn't because they were afraid that if we defy a figure of authority like a doctor,

then they'll lose their scholarships, endanger their standing with the team, things like that. Why are wrestlers coming out now and saying, I was molested? I think they were inspired by the female gymnasts at Michigan State. U.S. Gymnastics at Michigan State doctor Larry Nassar, who sexually abused more than 150 girls over two decades, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. A number of them basically, you know, were watching very carefully what was happening with Dr. Nassar and the way Michigan State was handling it. And they basically said, it's time for us to be heard.

And why is it that it took your reporting to tie this to Jim Jordan. Did the wrestlers not see Jim Jordan as someone who was at fault in any way here? I'm not sure if they were even aware that Jim Jordan had taken this strident, denying position. Conversations in a locker room are a lot different than people come up and talking about abuse. No one ever reported any abuse to me. If they had, I would have dealt with it. And what bothers me the most is the guys that are saying this thing. I know they know the truth. I know they do. You know, I read the quote to a couple of the wrestlers and they were like, he said that? Yeah. How many wrestlers did you talk to? A couple dozen. And it runs the gamut from wrestlers who are just incredulous that Jim Jordan is denying something that seems as obvious as water being wet to them to strident defenders of Congressman Jordan who say he's an upstanding guy and that he would always have our back and things like that.

Corky, the doctor at the heart of all this, Richard Strauss, he committed suicide in 2005. What does that mean for this investigation? Ohio State has a private law firm that's doing the investigation. They've interviewed, I believe, over 200 wrestlers and former administrators to basically find, who knew what was going on, who did what at the time. And some of the wrestlers who have already testified before the investigators have all said that the investigators have taken a keen interest in, you know, what the coaches knew, how the coaches responded, you know, and that would be people like Jim Jordan. I mean, if the investigators conclude that Congressman Jordan had to have known and that he didn't do anything about it, that could cause him some, you know, enormous political damage. Whether it's enough to get him unelected is a different story.

We reached out to Congressman Jordan for comment today. His office said Congressman Jordan never saw any abuse, never heard of any abuse, and never had any abuse reported to him while he was a coach at Ohio State University. Seven other coaches have said the same thing as the congressman, as have many wrestlers. They're all saying the same thing because it's the truth. Congressman Jordan will assist the investigation in any way that he can,

because if the allegations of abuse are true, the victims absolutely deserve justice. Up next, can Congressman Jim Jordan ride this thing out? Can he continue to climb the ranks of the Republican Party? This is Today Explained. I don't personally have a website, but I have a few favorites I could tell you about. One of them is breakmastercylinder.Bandcamp.com. It features days and days of music from Breakmaster Cylinder, the guy who makes music for our show. And if you want to make a website, Squarespace is making it easier than ever to launch one.

Whether you're looking to start a new business or share some of your work with the world or sell some stuff, Squarespace has all sorts of templates created by world-class designers, and you can customize all of them. You can learn way more at squarespace.com, and you can also get a free trial there and 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using the code EXPLAINED. Another website you should check out is revealnews.org. It's the website of a great podcast called Reveal. Reveal does super important investigative work every week. The show's latest episode is called Trapped, Abuse and Neglect in Private Care.

It features a really powerful story about an infamous center for the developmentally disabled in Central Florida, and a tragic story about the death of a DACA recipient while at an ICE facility in rural Georgia. You can subscribe to Reveal wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sabrina Eaton. I'm the Washington correspondent. We used to have multiple Washington correspondents, but now I'm the Eaton. I'm the Washington correspondent.

We used to have multiple Washington correspondents, but now I'm the sole survivor. I'm with Cleveland.com, and it's the newspaper The Cleveland Plain Dealer. And Jim Jordan, son of Ohio? Son of Ohio, and some people call him son of another stuff. I mean, you know, I don't want to, can I use that word? He's a son of Ohio. He's from a small town called St. Paris, Ohio. He was a wrestling champ.

Like a high school? Okay. Oh, in high school. And he went on to University of Wisconsin, where I think he was a two-time national champ, as I recall. Okay. In his weight class. And then he went on to become an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State for a few years. And then he became a state legislator for about 12 years. And then

after that, he came to Congress. When did he arrive in Congress? 2007. And a lot of people liked him. I mean, he's very telegenic. One of the things that I have to do, even though I was hired to be a writer, I have to take pictures and video. And he's one of these people, like, it's very hard to get a bad picture of the guy. You know what I mean? I mean, his features are just very chiseled. I mean, you've probably seen photos of him. Sure. I'm just looking at pictures of Jim Jordan now. He's got the chisel. Oh, there's a little wrestling photo too. Yeah. And he's one of these people who's very good at staying on message. He seems to have a few sentences that, you know, he thinks are good sentences

and he just says them a lot. Are we going to get back to doing what they elected us, what the American people elected us to do on November 8th, 2016? Are we going to get back to doing what we told them we were going to do? You know, the American people are tired of out-of-control spending, and they want Washington to get their act in order and stop spending money we don't have. That's one that he likes.

No wonder Americans hate this place. No wonder they're cynical. I don't blame them. This ticks me off. There's just no other way to say it. And more importantly, it ticks off the American people and it should. What kind of legislation is he sponsored? What's he known for? He's introduced bills that would require women to receive ultrasounds before getting an abortion. Back before gay marriage was legalized by the Supreme Court, he introduced bills to overturn the District of Columbia's decision to allow gay marriages. And one year, he refused to attend CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, because a gay GOP group was participating.

That was the log cabin Republicans. So he's very socially conservative in addition to being fiscally conservative. And then in 2015, him and a bunch of his friends formed the Freedom Caucus, which, you know, is for a lot of, you know, the very far conservative Tea Party Republicans. They're sort of the dogs that caught the car. They're the most conservative members of the House Republicans. And they've shown themselves to be very good at agitating, at really kind of messing up the process. And why did they form this caucus? We need to do what we tell the voters that we're going to do. Things like repealing Obamacare. And, you know, he feels, and I think there's probably a lot of Republicans out there who feel that a lot of the things that Republican politicians say they're going to do end up not getting done. And he wants to get them done.

I mean, the Freedom Caucus is very my way or the highway with this stuff. The Freedom Caucus has always been the opposition caucus against the Democrats. And now when we are in the majority, it continues to be the opposition caucus against anything in the Republican Party. How has the Freedom Caucus reacted to this scandal involving Jim Jordan now? Well, I mean, you're calling it a scandal and there's just not much reaction in Congress to it. And I don't know that there's even much reaction in Ohio to it. Everybody in the Freedom Caucus has said they support Jim Jordan. Until they're proven they're not real. It's as simple as that. Jim's one of the most ethical guys up here. We're sticking with Jim Jordan. He's an

honest guy. We're with him. Speaker Ryan has said he supports Jim Jordan in this. Jim Jordan is a friend of mine. We haven't always agreed with each other over the years. But I've always known Jim Jordan to be a man of honesty and a man of integrity. I mean, I think that if there is a battle for speaker and Jim Jordan comes out there, it could be just, you know, one of many factors that will be that would be considered. So you're saying there just basically isn't a scandal. I'm saying that there's some people that think it's a scandal, but the people that think it's a scandal are not people that would have been supporting Jim Jordan anyhow. Is there a difference between how Democrats and Republicans respond to sexual misconduct scandals and allegations?

No. I mean, no, because there's this Pew study that says 62 percent of Democrats say that men getting away with sexual misconduct is a major problem. But only one in three Republicans felt the same way. You know, I don't know that that is even a factor here. Jim Jordan is not being accused of sexually harassing anybody. Right. He's being accused of being aware. He's accused of being aware. Of someone else's sexual misconduct.

And he says he was not aware of it. Jim Jordan is also somebody who likes to talk about conspiracy theories. So, you know, this is going to, I'm sure, be part of a conspiracy theory. And I think he did some interview with Sean Hannity where it sounded like they were getting into a conspiracy theory on this. Congressman Jordan, welcome to the club. If you support Donald Trump,

you had to know the lies, the smears against you are obviously a political attack. i'm sorry you're going through that yeah you've been through it you know what it's like so thank you anyone that supports the president exactly right has the president said anything to yeah he backs jim jordan yeah he tweeted something to that effect quote jim jordan is one of the most outstanding people i've met since i've been in washington I believe him 100 percent. And all the people in, you know, Jim Jordan's district support every county in Jim Jordan's district voted for President Trump, the admitted pussy grabber. Pussy, I can say that on your show, right? You sure can. Yeah. Well, I mean, he said it.

So the idea that they would not vote for Jim Jordan because of this issue is not really well-founded. I think people in Ohio are concerned about this, but I think that it's really people are more concerned about what it says about Ohio State than what it says about Jim Jordan. Sabrina Eaton is the Washington correspondent for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com. I'm Sean Ramos from This Is Today Explained. Before we go, Squarespace, making it easier to launch a website, giving you templates. You can customize them. It's got all sorts of e-commerce tools, too. And if you ever get stuck, Squarespace has a 24-7

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