Content warning: This story contains graphic details about alleged sexual assault that may be difficult to read and emotionally upsetting.
Mark Coleman and Michael DiSabato continue to shed light on former Ohio State University physician Richard Strauss’ alleged 20-year pattern of sexual abuse.
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The upcoming documentary “Surviving Ohio State” premieres on HBO on June 17. Among many other former Ohio State alumni featured in the film are UFC Hall of Famer Coleman and DiSabato, both of whom first spoke out in 2018 about Strauss, who’s been accused of abusing hundreds — potentially thousands — of students during his time at Ohio State from 1978 to 1998.
Appearing in-studio on Monday’s edition of “The Ariel Helwani Show,” Coleman and DiSabato opened up, recounting some of their experiences ahead of the documentary’s debut at the Tribeca Film Festival.
“It was a joke within our community, within the locker room, that Strauss performed unnecessary genital exams on all of us, all the time,” DiSabato said. “At the time, this is 1986, we didn’t know what we know now to be grooming and sexual abuse. We just thought it was some dude who was not right and enjoyed something that was not cool. But he was the doctor, and he was the guy that cleared us to wrestle. If you had injuries, you had to go to him.
“Very much like Larry Nassar, he was a friend. It’s a complicated thing when you look back at it. He earned our trust. And when you got that Ohio State logo on the side of your chest, and you’re a medical doctor, well, we were taught to follow the rules and do what they say you’re going to do.”
Coleman, 60, recalled first meeting Strauss in 1986 when he went in for a physical. Having transferred from Miami University, the MMA legend had never experienced anything like what allegedly became a regularity at Ohio State.
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“People were saying to me, ‘Have fun in there,’ and it was an eye-opener,” Coleman said of his first visit with Strauss. “I didn’t understand it either, but I kind of knew Dr. Strauss was very hands-on, as they would say.
“Look, man — you needed this guy to compete. This guy’s got to sign you off. It’s that simple for me. I wanted to be a national champion. I wasn’t going to cause problems.”
Strauss’ alleged actions were considered an “open secret,” as described by DiSabato. He and Coleman would both ask other students and athletes what was up with Strauss always checking their genitals in exams. There was always some sort of reason given by Strauss, DiSabato claimed, whether it was looking for hernias or just being “thorough.”
DiSabato had heard rumors about Strauss before meeting him at age 14, but no one knew what to think — or even believed harassment of that nature existed. Yet when the sexual abuse cases of Michigan’s Larry Nassar came to light, and led to a lifetime prison sentence for Nassar a 2017, DiSabato put it all together in relation to what allegedly happened with him, Coleman and so many of their teammates.
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“We’re sitting around in December of 2017, and [Coleman] is reading the newspaper, and he’s talking about Larry Nassar to me because his daughter was a gymnast,” DiSabato said. “He’s reading the details, and it just hit me. I didn’t follow the Nassar case — I knew about it, but I didn’t know the details. When he went into the details and what Nassar was doing, [it was] very similar. Unnecessary genital exams. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. ‘That’s us, Mark.”’
For Coleman and DiSabato, the trauma and aftermath of their realizations have been difficult to process in real-time. Nassar’s case was widespread global news that dominated headlines. Strauss’ case, however, is still gaining exposure since the first bombshell accusations surfaced in 2018.
DiSabato believes that reaction is due to the difficult nature of male-on-male sexual abuse and the fact that it pertained to elite-level combat athletes. Even for Coleman, he struggled to pull the trigger.
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“You’ve got to sometimes get uncomfortable to become comfortable,” Coleman said. “… I was very nervous that day and I remember telling [Ohio State coach] Russ [Hellickson] that, ‘I’m pretty nervous. I don’t know if I should do this.’ He just looked at me and said, ‘Just tell the truth and everything will be OK.’ Something happened from there. Russ, when that video came out, it exploded. … Me, [DiSabato] and Russ talking in detail about what happened. It took a lot of courage, man, but I just did it.”
Ohio State University remains in active court proceedings with nearly 250 survivors of Strauss’ alleged abuse speaking out thus far. But Strauss’ exams weren’t exclusive to just wrestling — he saw athletes of all varieties daily. DiSabato believes the number of total victims of Strauss likely totals in the thousands.
DiSabato essentially labeled the Ohio State facilities a bathhouse because of the pervasiveness of Strauss’ alleged presence, claiming that Strauss never worked out with the athletes but took showers with them regularly. DiSabato claimed that Strauss sometimes allegedly would take multiple showers a day with the Ohio State student athletes, depending on who entered when he was around.
Although Coleman and DiSabato’s coach Hellickson later retracted his statements after allegedly urging Coleman to speak out in the case’s initial stages, the pair saw him as one of the good ones on staff. There were times when Coleman would get angry before his matches, specifically recalling instances when he got ready in bathroom stalls and next to him were allegedly other people watching through peepholes.
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“Russ Hellickson, to his credit, went to university officials on multiple occasions and said, ‘This is not right. Strauss is doing stuff he shouldn’t be doing, and this environment at [our campus] is toxic.’ It’s hard for people to wrap their minds around it unless you were there,” DiSabato said.
“Just imagine you’re coming down from practice, you’ve got to go take a shower, and it’s the gauntlet of sexual deviancy. You’re walking into a shower, into a sauna, and you know every day there’s going to be multiple dudes there that are there to watch you take a shower, to watch you take a sauna. And they’re performing, on multiple situations, sex acts. You’ve got dudes masturbating. At one point, in a testimony, Russ tells the story of a guy in a toilet stall that was adjacent to the shower, and Hellickson walks in, and this dude is literally peeping over the top, masturbating. Hellickson pulls the door open, grabs the guy by his wrist, pulls him out, and his testimony says he almost took his hand off, basically, squeezing it so hard. The anger of having to deal with this every day, rage of having to be in this kind of environment, of having a doctor every time you went down to see him wants to see your genitals. Every time.
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“I busted my knuckle one time in the middle of practice, and I went downstairs and had someone pop it in place,” DiSabato continued. “[Strauss] wanted to see my genitals. I’m like, ‘Dude, enough.’ I went back up. But if you had a sore throat, whatever it was, he had a reason, and it was always ‘thorough evaluation.’”
As bad as things were claimed to be with Strauss, both DiSabato and Coleman said the community enabled the abuse as well. One of Coleman’s most memorable experiences, he said, came from an encounter with a student who threatened his life after he stood up for himself.
“I remember one day, it’s a Saturday in the offseason, so I was in there by myself training,” Coleman said. “I was taking a shower afterward, and I turn around and there’s a pretty big guy standing across there — 6-foot-2, 225 [pounds], and he’s just staring right at me, playing with himself, staring at me. Finally I said, ‘What the f*** you looking at, dude? Just take your shower and get the f*** out of here.’ He said, ‘I’m going to take my shower and get my gun, come back and shoot your ass.’ Whoa. I got the hell out of there. This was just a student, probably.”
Strauss ultimately committed suicide in 2005.
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For Coleman and DiSabato, after all they’ve gone through, it’s now about spreading awareness to protect young athletes in sports. That starts with “Surviving Ohio State” and continuing to fight back with the Strauss lawsuit.
“I just learn to deal with things,” Coleman said. “I’m dealing with it. I’m just super proud [of our efforts] because I know how many people I’ve helped coming forward like this. This is a big deal. It wasn’t easy for me to come forward, but I decided to do it.
“I definitely suppressed it, then brought it back up with the Michigan State deal, and it just never clicked to me because we just didn’t think male-on-male, it wasn’t ever a thing. We just didn’t think it was possible. ‘What do you mean you let this guy do this, Coleman? Why didn’t you just smash him?’ That ain’t how it works, idiots. Neither would you smash him, so shut the f*** up.
“The movie’s going to blow it up and end this stuff — 10 lawsuits across the country. I’m proud. We started that. So, how many people got saved from that? And so that it doesn’t happen in the future. I want [Ohio State to] pay. Justice.”
