Michigan Football Needs A Facelift
Schembechler Hall needs to be renamed and the statue of Bo outside of the building needs to come down.
After an independent investigation conducted by the law firm WilmerHale uncovered decades of sexual abuse by former University of Michigan employee, school and football team doctor Robert Anderson, a 240-page report was released on Tuesday. Nearly 600 former patients of Anderson came forward to share their experiences, often describing inappropriate and disturbing conduct by the former university doctor. Also according to the report, Schembechler knew some of what the doctor was doing and did nothing about it.
Employed by the University of Michigan from 1966 to 2003, Anderson's habit of sexually assaulting his patients was reportedly common knowledge among Michigan's student athletes and even some officials. According to the report released by WilmerHale, Anderson would often perform unnecessary examinations of students who were seeking treatment for unrelated issues.
If Bo knew, and didn't do everything he could to stop it, he's at least partially responsible for it. Given the findings of the report, Bo did know. Because of that, his image and likeness needs to be removed from Michigan football.
If that does happen, there will probably be some fallout. Said fallout might even involve some pretty influential, powerful and wealthy people who support Michigan football to the nth degree. The Michigan football program might lose decades of donors who fund scholarships for football and maybe even other non-revenue sports. There would likely be a massive double-down on the mediocre/negative perception of Michigan football right now and it might even affect and negatively impact the local economy to an extent.
It doesn't matter. Right is right, and wrong is wrong. The right thing needs to be done and it needs to be done rather quickly.
Too many people want to protect the brand, the financial aspect of it all, the perception and the legacy. Too often that results in bad things getting swept under the rug and nobody ends up doing what they're supposed to do. That's how you get to hundreds of victims over the course of four decades. If Michigan chooses to go that route, and essentially does nothing, the concept of being "leaders and best" ceases to exist.
