Former UFC champion Mark Coleman said on Thursday he is among the victims of a now-dead Ohio State team doctor who has been accused of sexual misconduct by more than 100 former students.
Coleman, who wrestled for Ohio State in the late 1980s and later became an Olympic champion, said in a statement he was willing to cooperate with authorities investigating alleged serial predator Dr Richard Strauss.
He also said he never saw or has any direct knowledge that Republican Congressman Jim Jordan knew about the sexual misconduct when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State from 1987 to 1995.
Coleman previously said Jordan must have been aware of the abuse, but on Thursday insisted he no longer stood by the comments.

Mark Coleman, (left, in Las Vegas in 2009) said in a statement he was willing to cooperate with authorities investigating alleged serial predator Dr Richard Strauss (right, in 1978)
‘Maybe I spoke without thinking,’ Coleman told CNN. ‘This has absorbed my life. Since I’ve said that, it’s consumed me 24 hours a day, and I didn’t like the way it was heading, the direction it was heading.’
‘I was angry and said words that I shouldn’t have said. He may have known about some locker room banter because we did joke about it in the locker room, but I don’t know of anyone ever reporting it to Jim Jordan directly.’
Previously he had told the Wall Street Journal Rep Jordan must have known about the abuse ‘unless he’s got dementia or something’.
More than 100 former students have provided firsthand accounts of sexual misconduct at the hands of Strauss, Ohio State University revealed earlier this month.
Over 200 former students and university employees have been interviewed by independent investigators reviewing allegations against Strauss involving male athletes from 14 sports as well as his work at the student health center and his off-campus medical office, University President Michael Drake said.
‘We are grateful to those who have come forward and remain deeply concerned for anyone who may have been affected by Dr Strauss’ actions,’ Drake said. ‘We remain steadfastly committed to uncovering the truth.’
Ohio State has urged anyone with information to contact the investigators from Seattle-based law firm Perkins Coie, who are looking into the allegations, what university officials knew and how they responded to any concerns about Strauss.
The university said investigators plan 100 or more additional interviews.
Rep. Jordan was one of the previous interviews. He has always denied some wrestlers’ claims that he knew about abuse when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State.
Former athletes say they verbally raised concerns about Strauss as early as 1978, near the start of his two decades at the university.
Ohio State has a record of at least one documented complaint against Strauss. Paperwork from 1995 shows the then-director of the student health center said a student’s complaint about being inappropriately touched by Strauss during an exam was the first such complaint he’d received.

Independent investigators are reviewing allegations by men from 14 sports at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio (pictured in 2001) about Strauss
The documentation that ex-student Steve Snyder-Hill obtained from Ohio State this week shows he complained about Strauss by phone – not by letter, as he’d recalled – and got a letter back from the director, Ted Grace.
Grace now leads student health services at Southern Illinois University. He declined to comment through a spokeswoman there.
Numerous athletes claimed in the filing that such ignorance couldn’t have been possible in Larkins Hall, where many teams practiced and university employees exercised.
There are stories of Strauss and others lingering by the showers to leer at the young men, peeking over bathroom stalls and through the sauna window.
One former wrestler said the center was filled with ‘creepy people’, while many – including a former coach – said they complained countless times.
Russ Hellickson, the wrestling coach who came to Ohio State in the mid-1980s, said he often caught men having sex in the team’s practice room and a nearby stairwell.
‘It became a real problem because it affected the mental state of a lot of our wrestlers,’ he said on a video distributed by one of his former team members.
‘There were times when the athletes themselves would confront people.’
Hellickson, who coached at Ohio State from 1986-2006, said he had numerous conversations with an official in charge of campus recreation and other university administrators.

Former athletes say they verbally raised concerns about Strauss as early as 1978, near the start of his two decades at the university
But, he said, nothing changed for years until the team moved to a new training facility near the end of his tenure.
‘All of my administrators recognized that it was an issue for me,’ Hellickson said on the video.
Jordan, who joined Ohio State in 1986 and was assistant coach from 1987 to 1995, has claimed he knew nothing about lewd behavior at Larkins Hall.
Independent investigators are reviewing allegations by men from 14 sports about Strauss.
The allegations that Strauss fondled and groped male athletes during physical examinations and medical treatment date back to the 1970s.
He retired as a professor in 1998 and later moved to California, where he killed himself in 2005 at age 67.
And former Ohio State wrestlers Mike DiSabato and Dunyasha Yetts claim it would have been impossible for Jordan to be unaware because they directly told him about Strauss’s abuse.
‘I considered Jim Jordan a friend,’ DiSabato told NBC News. ‘But at the end of the day, he is absolutely lying if he says he doesn’t know what was going on.’
DiSabato said he reached out to Jordan and told the congressman that he planned to go public with his allegations.
Jordan told him to ‘please leave me out of it,’ DiSabato claimed. ‘He asked me not to get him involved.’

There are stories of Strauss and others lingering by the showers to leer at the young men, peeking over bathroom stalls and through the sauna window at Larkins Hall (pictured)
Yetts, who wrestled at Ohio State in 1993 and 1994, said he and others told Jordan about Strauss.
‘I remember I had a thumb injury and went into Strauss’ office and he started pulling down my wrestling shorts,’ he recalled.
‘I’m like, what the f**k are you doing? And I went out and told Russ and Jim what happened. I was not having it. They went in and talked to Strauss.’
Yetts said he and his teammates talked to Jordan numerous times about their interactions with the doctor.
Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan was one of the previous interviews. He has publicly denied some wrestlers’ claims that he knew about abuse when he was an assistant coach at Ohio State.
Former athletes say they verbally raised concerns about Strauss as early as 1978, near the start of his two decades at the university.
Ohio State has a record of at least one documented complaint against Strauss. Paperwork from 1995 shows the then-director of the student health center said a student’s complaint about being inappropriately touched by Strauss during an exam was the first such complaint he’d received.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan (pictured in Washington on July 12) has faced claims he knew about the abuse, which he denies
The documentation that ex-student Steve Snyder-Hill obtained from Ohio State this week shows he complained about Strauss by phone – not by letter, as he’d recalled – and got a letter back from the director, Ted Grace.
Grace now leads student health services at Southern Illinois University. He declined to comment through a spokeswoman there.
Numerous athletes claimed in the filing that such ignorance couldn’t have been possible in Larkins Hall, where many teams practiced and university employees exercised.