Photo: Mike Avery/Facebook
While speaking toNBC Nightly Newsin an interview Thursday, Avery, 50, said he has struggled to come to terms with the abuse that he experienced as a student-athlete from 1988-1991.
“I’ve got a story that I’ve been carrying with me for three decades,” he told the outlet. “It’s something I won’t forget.”
During his sophomore year of college, Avery says that Strauss performed a groin examination on him that immediately felt wrong.
“No physical I’d ever known went on like this,” he recalled, adding that the exam seemed to go on forever. “I remember saying to one of my teammates afterward, ‘I think I was just assaulted.'”
Mike Avery.Mike Avery/Facebook
Aside from his teammate, Avery never disclosed what happened to him to anyone else, which eventually began to affect his relationships later in life.
“I didn’t say anything to anyone. I didn’t say a word for three decades,” he explained. “My wife and I have had trouble with our marriage. It caused problems I didn’t expect to have to deal with.”
“I was angry that I have to share this with my family who had no idea,” Avery said. “And with what I do for a living, got to share it with my viewers locally where I live.”
The May report alleged that university personnel had knowledge of the abuse as early as 1979, but complaints were never elevated beyond the Athletics or Student Health departments until 1996.
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At the time, the school’s president Michael Drake senta statement to students, faculty, and staff, where he called the findings “shocking and painful to comprehend.”
Since May, the number of cases against Strauss have skyrocketed. OSU stated inits annual crime reportthis week that Strauss committed as many as 1,429 sexual assaults and 47 outright rapes while in his position as the university’s physician.
“This guy basically roamed that campus for decades, preying on dozens of athletes,” Avery told NBC News. “It’s absolutely angering that this went on.”
A rep for OSU did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.
Aside from Avery, fellow OSU students Michael Rodriguez and Nick Nutter also spoke to NBC News about their experiences with Strauss.
Rodriguez, a former wrestler at the university from 1990 to 1992, dropped out of school after his encounter with Strauss. He claimed that the doctor masturbated him at his home after Rodriguez went to him to receive ointment to treat his pubic lice.
“It never dawned on me to hit him,” Rodriguez admitted. “I never went back to practice, I never went back to class, I never told my coach.”
Nutter, a former wrestler from 1992 to 1997, had a similar account where Strauss allegedly groped him during physicals and shared one disturbing encounter when Strauss masturbated him on his bed at home in a candlelit room covered with photos of shirtless men.
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“I would have a cauliflower ear and he would say pull your pants down,” Nutter recalled, adding that he never took action against Strauss for fear that he’d lose his college scholarship. “The last thing I wanted to do is punch a doctor in the nose and ruin that scholarship.”
“Now they are going to see a different side of me,” he told the outlet. “I hope the support is there… I’m just me.”
source: people.com
