Bob Ketcham, Ed. S.

A wrestling referee says he walked out of the Ohio State showers and told two coaches the team doctor had just touched himself next to him. One of the coaches was Jim Jordan, now one of Donald Trump’s closest allies in Congress. “Jim Jordan looked at me straight in my face and said, ‘It’s Strauss. You know what he does.” Dr. Richard Strauss examined Ohio State athletes from the 1970s to the 1990s. In 2019 an independent investigation found he had sexually abused at least 177 students. It also found that coaches and administrators knew for two decades and did nothing. Strauss had killed himself in 2005. Jordan was an assistant wrestling coach there from 1986 to 1994. In the video below, former team captain Adam DiSabato tells Ohio lawmakers what happened when the story broke: “Jim Jordan called me crying… groveling, on the Fourth of July, begging me to go against my brother.” Jordan says he never saw or heard of any abuse. Former athletic director Andy Geiger testified that Jordan “probably knew.” Jordan’s own deposition is still under seal. In June, Ohio State agreed to pay $100 million to 279 more survivors. With earlier settlements, the university has now paid more than $161 million to about 600 men, roughly $270,000 each. “People always call Jim Jordan a fighter,” says former wrestler Will Knight. “I always wonder who he’s fighting for.” Did Jim Jordan know what was happening in that locker room, or are his old wrestlers blaming the one coach who became famous?