Surviving Ohio State, a powerful new HBO documentary, reveals decades of sexual abuse at OSU and the courageous survivors speaking out.
📅 Release Date & Where To Watch
- Premiere Date: Tuesday, June 17 at 9:00 PM ET/PT
- Where To Watch: HBO and streaming on Max
🎥 What Is Surviving Ohio State About?
The HBO Original documentary Surviving Ohio State is a gut-wrenching but necessary watch.
Directed by Oscar and Emmy winner Eva Orner—known for the gripping Brandy Hellville & The Cult of Fast Fashion—this film turns the spotlight on a decades-long scandal that rocked one of the country’s most respected universities.
Between 1978 and 1998, Dr. Richard Strauss, a sports medicine physician at The Ohio State University, sexually abused hundreds of male student-athletes.
What’s more harrowing is how the abuse was allowed to continue unchecked for nearly 20 years.
💔 A Story Of Pain, Silence, And Courage
Surviving Ohio State centers the voices of the survivors—former student-athletes and alumni who carried their trauma in silence for decades.
Several All-American wrestlers and fellow athletes share their deeply personal experiences, recounting how their pain was dismissed and buried under institutional inaction.
The documentary features interviews with survivors including:
- Mark Coleman
- Adam and Michael DiSabato
- Will Knight
- Al Novakowski
- Rockey Ratliff
- Dan Ritchie
- Mike Schyck
- Stephen Snyder-Hill
- Wrestling referee Frederick Feeney
Their testimonies are raw, emotional, and a testament to the power of speaking truth to power.
🎬 Watch The Surviving Ohio State Trailer Now
📰 From Cover Story To Screen
The documentary builds on Jon Wertheim’s investigative Sports Illustrated cover story, “Why Aren’t More People Talking About the Ohio State Sex Abuse Scandal?”
That article broke open a conversation many had tried to keep buried—and now, Eva Orner’s film is amplifying it on a national scale.
⚖️ Seeking Justice & Accountability
Beyond the survivors’ stories, Surviving Ohio State investigates the broader culture at OSU that allowed abuse to thrive.
It looks at the university’s failure to protect its students, the efforts by whistleblowers to expose the truth, and the survivors’ ongoing legal and public battle for accountability.
📺 Why You Should Watch
This is more than just a documentary—it’s a call to confront the systems that protect abusers and silence victims.
Surviving Ohio State is essential viewing for anyone who believes in justice, transparency, and the power of survivor-led truth-telling.
Will you be watching Surviving Ohio State?
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