In absentia

 Bo Schembechler died on the morning of the Michigan-Ohio State game 15 years ago, so it is only his good name that can stand trial now. Robert Anderson is dead, too, so he is also beyond the reach of earthly judgment.

I say this because that was a hell of an indictment that got dropped on them in Ann Arbor yesterday, in absentia though it may have been.

Two of Bo's former players at Michigan, and his son Matt, told the media they had been molested by Anderson, the team "doctor," and that they told Bo about it, and that Bo refused to believe them. Matt Schembechler 10 years old at the time, alleges Bo actually shoved him when he tried to tell him about the alleged abuse in 1969, shortly after Bo's decorated reign began.

And if you're wondering now why he and the former players waited so long to go public with all this, you're just one more person who doesn't understand how sexual abuse -- and football -- work.

Victims of sexual predators sometimes hide what happened to them for decades, if not forever, because they're either trying to forget or are so mortified by it (and the misplaced guilt that often consumes them) they can't bring themselves to admit it. Better to convince yourself it didn't happen, or that you simply misconstrued a predator's depravity. 

Now imagine you're also a football player in the program of a legendary coach whose statue stands outside the stadium.

 No person on earth more approximates a Roman emperor than a football coach at a football holy land like Michigan, and Bo wasn't just any football coach. He was the football coach. The kids who played for him both feared and were awed by him; the natural inclination toward blind obedience football demands was only magnified by his stature.

He didn't just coach Michigan football, after all. He was Michigan football.

And so of course it took nearly 40 years for the two players at yesterday's news conference to go public with narratives in which Bo appears less god-like than fallibly human.

Look. I don't know what Bo Schembechler knew and when he knew it about his team "doctor," but according to the two players at yesterday's presser, Anderson's alleged proclivities were common knowledge among both players and staff. One player said assistant coaches used to threaten them with a visit to the good "doctor" if they didn't work harder.

If so, it's impossible to believe a man with such an iron grip on every facet of his program as Bo Schembechler would not have been aware of those proclivities, too. And if he did, it seems he clearly sided with Anderson.

And if he did that, he was complicit in whatever twisted acts Anderson allegedly was committing.

So this is Joe Paterno all over again, a football icon being accused of turning a blind eye to sexual predation. As with Schembechler, some of the worst allegations about Paterno came out after his death. And as with Schembechler, there were plenty of folks willing to defend him even if he couldn't.

Already, it seems, some of the Bo Boys have rallied around. Bo's younger son Glenn says Matt is lying through this teeth, and that he's been estranged from the family for awhile now. Both Glenn, and current Michigan coach and former Schembechler quarterback Jim Harbaugh, say they can't imagine Bo not taking immediate action if a player came to him with allegations about the team doctor. 

Which means this is the same old he said/he said dynamic that always emerges with these issues. What remains unclear is why two of Bo's former players would make it all up -- and why they would wait to do so until the man had been in the ground for 15 years.

The Blob has no answer for that.

Unfortunately for Emperor Bo, why they would not make it up does have answers.