Richard Strauss joined Ohio State in 1978 as a medical professor and soon began working around the university's athletic facilities, eventually treating athletes from wrestling, gymnastics, swimming and diving, fencing, lacrosse, football, hockey, cheerleading, track, and numerous other sports. By 1979, athletics officials reportedly knew that Strauss conducted unusually prolonged and medically unnecessary genital examinations on male athletes, often without staff present. He also showered with students at Larkins Hall, sometimes sitting on a stool and staring into the athletes' showers. Multiple former students later described his conduct as an open secret, while complaints accumulated for years without meaningful intervention.
An independent Perkins Coie investigation released in May 2019 concluded that Strauss had sexually abused at least 177 male student-patients, 153 of them student-athletes, including 48 wrestlers. The investigation found that Ohio State was aware of concerns as early as 1979 but failed to report Strauss to law enforcement. Even after the university placed him on leave in January 1996 and terminated him from athletics and student health later that year, he continued seeing young male patients at an off-campus clinic. He retired from Ohio State in 1998 with emeritus status and died by suicide in 2005. The scandal later produced a reported $40.9 million settlement with 162 survivors in 2020, while the source records an approximately $100 million settlement announced in June 2026 involving hundreds of former student-athletes. The case became one of the most consequential institutional-abuse scandals in American college sports, exposing how athletic departments, medical systems, and university administrators allowed repeated warnings to go unanswered.
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