Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh defended his former coach in Bo Schembechler while speaking to a group of reporters Thursday at Ferris State University, stating the Michigan folk hero never would have ignored claims of sexual assault made by his players against disgraced former team doctor Robert Anderson.
Anderson, who died in 2008, is accused of more than 800 instances of abuse of student-athletes spanning multiple decades. He was able to remain a top physician at the school through 2003 despite being fired in 1979 as Michigan’s director of health services after allegations of abuse. And among the allegations include Schembechler being made aware of the abuse.
“Well, I can tell you this,” Harbaugh said. “Bo Schembechler — there was nothing that I saw during the times I was a kid here, my dad was on the staff, or when I played here — he never sat on anything.”
“He never procrastinated anything,” Harbaugh said of Schembechler. “I mean, he took care of it before the sun went down. That’s the Bo Schembechler that I know.
“Nothing was ever swept under the rug or ignored. He addressed everything in a timely fashion. That’s the Bo Schembechler that I know.”
Schembechler served as Michigan’s head coach from 1969 to 1989, and won multiple Big Ten championships. He also served as UM Athletic Director from 1988 to 1990.
