Ohio State Football Greats Plan to Join Strauss Sex Abuse Plaintiffs

Strauss served as a team physician and associate director of sports medicine in Ohio State’s athletic department from 1978 to 1996, working with athletes across the athletic department. His abuse, which extended to both athletes and non-athletes alike, has been most closely associated with wrestlers, including Michael DiSabato, the first accuser to publicly detail allegations against him. Football players, by contrast, historically have not been central to the allegations.

In May 2019, Ohio State released an independent investigative report by the law firm Perkins Coie, which stated that out of the 177 individuals who provided firsthand accounts of sexual misconduct by Strauss, only three were football players. By contrast, 48 were wrestlers and 16 were gymnasts.

Washington has become an increasingly vocal critic against Ohio State’s handling of the Strauss matter, joining public rallies calling for the university to dissociate itself from billionaire donor Les Wexner, who served as president of the school’s board of trustees at a critical point when the school was investigating allegations against Strauss. But this is the first time that Washington has alleged being personally victimized by Strauss.

In a statement released through DiSabato, who has coordinated the public response of Strauss accusers, Washington said his decision to come forward and join the class action was driven by both his desire to restore the integrity of Ohio State football and to help protect future athletes from similar harm.

Washington, Ellis and Ferguson were all recruited to OSU by legendary coach Woody Hayes and starred for the 1979 Buckeyes squad that reached the Rose Bowl after an undefeated regular season. Hayes, who had been fired by Ohio State after the previous season, was honored years later by OSU when it named its athletics training facility—which now houses, among other things, the Les Wexner Football Complex—after him.

“We stand together in solidarity as former teammates and Buckeyes who love our university and the legacy of Coach Woody Hayes,” Washington said in his statement. “Coach Hayes always preached to us to ‘Pay Forward.’ Using our voices to pay forward in this situation is not easy, but we believe it is necessary to protect future athletes and to ensure accountability for what has happened to us.”

Beyond his connections to Hayes, Washington also represents a link to present Ohio State program. His son, Al Washington Jr., served on current head coach Ryan Day’s staff as an assistant from 2019 to 2021.

Not all of the 30 former football players are publicly identifying themselves at this point. An attorney for the plaintiffs said that there will be no formal court filing tied specifically to the players and, instead, they will join the existing class represented in the Gonzales v. Ohio State case. That litigation is moving forward alongside four related federal lawsuits—Snyder-Hill v. Ohio State, Knight v. Ohio State, Doe 162 v. Ohio State, and *Gresock v. Ohio State—*with a bellwether trial scheduled for October.

Earlier this week, the Snyder-Hill, Knight and Gonzales plaintiffs filed a voluminous motion naming 23 former Ohio State officials they argue qualify as “appropriate persons” under Title IX—employees authorized to act on reports of sexual discrimination.

Those identified include four former Ohio State athletic directors (Hugh Hindman, Rick Bay, James Jones and Andy Geiger), along with several other athletics officials, including Paul Krebs, Larry Romanoff and Archie Griffin.

Griffin, a two-time Heisman Trophy winner for OSU who played under coach Hayes in the early 1970s, later held multiple administrative roles in the Buckeyes’ athletic department and served as president of the school’s alumni association before retiring in 2020.

Geiger, who served as AD from 1994 to 2005, drew national attention in 2003 when he removed star running back Maurice Clarett’s scholarship amid an NCAA investigation into impermissible benefits.

Krebs followed his work at Ohio State by serving as athletic director at Bowling Green and New Mexico, retiring from the latter in 2017 amid a criminal investigation related to a booster golf trip to Scotland.

Ohio State has held that none of the aforementioned athletics officials qualify as “appropriate persons” and, therefore, the school is not liable for any of the individuals’ failures to take corrective action related to Strauss.

The latest group of football plaintiffs adds to the mountain pressure the university faces to remove the name of major donor and former trustee Wexner from the Buckeyes practice facility.

Wexner, the billionaire fashion executive and former Jeffrey Epstein client, chaired the university’s board of trustees during a period in which allegations of Strauss’ misconduct had initially been raised. The university says it has received around 500 petitions asking to remove Wexner’s name from the football facility and other university buildings. Among those petitioners is Stephen Snyder-Hill, one of the lead plaintiffs suing OSU, whose initiated petition to remove Wexner’s name was denied by the school’s standing advisory committee in January.

In response to inquiries, Ohio State has not provided any update or timeframe as to whether it would respond to the trove of requests since then.

In February, a federal judge ordered Wexner to sit for a deposition in the Strauss-related lawsuits, and Sportico confirmed with multiple sources this week that he has since been deposed. Wexner is being represented by the law firm run by John W. Zeiger, the current chair of the Ohio State board of trustees, whose official term is set to conclude later this month.

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