Former Ohio State Wrestlers Warn Jim Jordan Is Not Fit To Be Speaker
Four former Ohio State wrestlers are speaking out against Representative Jim Jordan, alleging that the conservative hard-liner and Freedom Caucus founder is not qualified to be House speaker after he shoved sexual abuse concerns under the rug during his time as a coach at the university.
“He doesn’t deserve to be House speaker. He still has to answer for what happened to us,” former Ohio State University wrestler Dunyasha Yetts told NBC.
Before his explosive political career and nomination to speaker of the House, Jordan served as an assistant coach to OSU’s wrestling team from 1986 to 1994, a period that overlapped with the tenure of Richard Strauss, a team doctor accused of abusing at least 177 male student-patients.
A 2019 investigation found that school officials were aware of Strauss’s conduct as early as 1979 but, instead of taking action, chose to orchestrate a cover-up of the abuse.
Several former teammates and even referees claim that Jordan knew about the doctor’s misconduct but did nothing to stop it.
A Jordan spokesperson, Russell Dye, denied that the Trump-endorsed congressman knew of the abuse during his time at OSU. “Chairman Jordan never saw or heard of any abuse, and if he had, he would have dealt with it,” Dye said in an email to NBC.
But Jordan also skirted involvement with the official investigation, which did not name him but found that “coaches, trainers and other team physicians were fully aware of Strauss’ activities, and yet few seemed inclined to do anything to stop it.”
“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck told NBC. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”
At a 2018 hearing before the Ohio House Civil Justice Committee, Adam DiSabato, another former OSU wrestler and the brother of the scandal’s whistleblower, Mike DiSabato, claimed that Jordan had called him weeks before his testimony “crying, groveling, begging me to go against my brother, begging me, crying for a half-hour.… That’s the kind of cover-up that’s going on here. He’s a coward. He’s a coward.”
