Schembechler son, players say Michigan coach knew of abuse

“Bo looked at me and said ‘Toughen up,’” Kwiatkowski said.

Matt Schembechler, 62, said Anderson abused him during a 1969 physical that he needed to get in order to play youth football. He said when he told his father, who was then in his first year of his iconic run with the Wolverines, his father punched him hard in the chest.

He told ESPN on Wednesday that his mother invited the athletic director at the time, Don Canham, to their home so he could describe the abuse. And he told The Detroit News that Canham fired Anderson “nearly immediately.”

“Bo went to him and said, ‘I need him, he is our team doctor, reinstate him,’ and he did,” the 62-year-old Schembechler told the News. Canham died in 2005, one year before Bo Schembechler. Anderson died in 2008.

A report commissioned by the university and released last month found that Bo Schembechler and other officials were aware of complaints about Anderson but he was allowed to remain at the school for decades.

Asked why they decided to come forward about the abuse, Johnson said it was important to put faces to the allegations and to make sure there could be no doubt that Bo Schembechler was aware of the sexual abuse. He also talked about how the abuse has affected his life.

“Because of my experience at Michigan, I did not trust doctors,” Johnson said, adding that he “had trust issues, relationship issues and intimacy issues.”