My University of Michigan wrestling story, Part Two: Redemption
- Tad de Luca
- Aug 26
- 6 min read
This blog entry by Tad DeLuca is Part Two of a series. Please read his August 19 entry first for context.
From October of 2019 until February of 2020, I was floating on a cloud. There were at least 50 others who told a police officer the same thing I did about the University of Michigan team doctor. What happened to me was real. The stupid wrestling coach was wrong. I was right. The shame from the 1975 letters to and from the U-M wrestling coach had pretty much been lifted away. It couldn’t get any better than this–until it did.
As I previously mentioned, I had seen that the Olympic wrestler Andy Hrovat had come forward with an attorney, so I figured I could, too. I called his lawyer and a couple of days later, I was at a press conference near Detroit.
My new lawyer, Parker Stinar, opened with a statement and then read to the reporters one of the things that the coach had written to me in 1975. The lights were bright and I was sitting at a table next to my former roommate Tom Evashevski, who had been there in 1975 when the football player told us that what the doctor was doing was wrong. There were dozens of people with phones, cameras, microphones, and notepads. I remember seeing big camera rigs for Fox, ABC, and some others. I said to myself, “Holy crap. You did it this time.” Even though I knew that Mark West had found 50 other guys, I was still worried that something could go wrong on a national scale. Parker was talking and all of a sudden, he quoted what the coach had written to me 45 years earlier, “That is why you were never a winner at Michigan.” I heard the audience gasp. I actually smiled because a very short time into the interview, the coach was made to look like the idiot he was, and still is today. I wasn’t embarrassed by the statement. Meanwhile, Andy reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. The redemption was flowing, and everybody knew it. EVERYBODY.
It soon became a two-year-long blur. There were many interviews. I met Jon Vaughn and Chuck Christian. We started knocking on Michigan’s door. Other men and women came forward. The numbers grew weekly, until there were 1,078 people who were represented by lawyers. I met dozens of mostly men who thanked me for what I had done and what I was doing. I appreciated it, but it made me feel very uncomfortable and I am not sure why. To me, coming forward was not a big deal and was actually quite simple. I was retired. I never had to work again, look for a job, or be subject to a pre-employment internet search. I didn’t have any social media, so even if I was blasted on one of those platforms I wouldn’t have seen it. I wouldn’t have cared either. People who knew me, knew who I was, and who I wasn’t. Advocating for the others and standing up to Michigan was something that I was able to do. Therefore, I had to do it. I just plain couldn’t not do it.
Suddenly, things I never could have imagined happened. Young men and women started telling me about their sexual assaults, their rapes, and quite often, how they were having trouble being believed. One day, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel came and did a show about Jon, Chuck and me that was nominated for an Emmy! Holy crap. Dr. Phil came and filmed Jon, Chuck, and me on campus and then flew us to Los Angeles to record two shows. Some U-M professors honored us at the UMMA for raising sexual assault and rape awareness on campus. The list of redemptive things could go on and on. Everything from the Mark West 2019 phone call to the first interview near Detroit to The Dr. Phil Show to every “thank you” to the UMMA Awards night have been steps up the redemption ladder. A totally unexpected redemption that I never would have imagined was being trusted by scores of students to hear their personal accounts of being sexually assaulted and raped.
Believe it or not, there is still a small, but significant hole in the big picture of this redemption. The University of Michigan Regent, Paul Brown, issued a very perfunctory apology of 26 words that apologized for the doctor, but not the big U’s role. For me, I don’t really see the doctor any more. He’s dead and can’t hurt anyone else. I’ve worked hard to wipe him out of my memory. I only see Michigan’s lies and malfeasance. I also see the hypocrisy of the “Leaders and the Best” credo. All they had to say was, “We screwed up,” and the last piece of the puzzle would be in place. They just couldn’t bring themselves to do it.
There is one more rung we climbed on the redemptive ladder. One night, in the span of a few seconds I found out that I was going to be in a play. A musical. I don’t sing. I don’t dance. I do not have much, if any rhythm. (However, I did however have a history of gleefully writing limericks and rhyming couplets to annoy people.) Jon, Chuck and I were one act of a three-act play composed of survivors, who all experienced trauma of some sort. Everyone had a dark secret that they exposed on stage under the bright lights. I felt very unsure about this at first, as the cast and crew started to grow. Of the 40 or so people involved, I had only known Jon and Chuck. Over the four months of rehearsal, I became aware of many of the past events that many people were dragging around with them. At first, it was overwhelming because it seemed as though everyone was on edge trying to protect themselves and not hurt others. Early on, I was walking around very carefully and was worried about saying the wrong thing.
Although I was dragged into it on the verge of kicking and screaming, I found that being in the Ni une más production and delivering my lines in what I am told is “Hamilton style” was the ultimate experience. I was stumbling around with my lines for a few days and found that they didn’t fit the way I spoke or thought about things. One morning on my bike ride–seemingly out of nowhere–edited versions of the first two couplets from the play just showed up out of the back of my head. I said them a few times as I biked through the woods. They seemed to fit. After my bike ride, I wrote them down. Over the next several bike rides, more and more lines that I could say and actually meant something to me showed up. What was strange was that most of the time, I didn’t seem to have to consciously think of what to say. After writing them down and letting the words and lines settle for a while, I would tweak them. Without intending to do this, I started reorganizing the lines in my head. All of a sudden, lines were there that felt natural. I wrote them down when I got home and sent them to the director, Pamela. At the computer, I tried taking my lines further, but couldn’t. The creativity had vanished.
On more than one occasion, anger crept into these bike rides and helped the lines along. As with many of my bike rides, the anger of remembering my times at Michigan usually dissipated by the time I got back home. I remembered something from 1975, and the words were just there. It felt good typing them down and sending them to the director.
“Wrote the coach a letter back in ‘75,
Told him ‘bout the doctor and all of his jive.
No matter what injury, you get by chance,
He puts on a glove and makes you drop your pants.”
-Tad DeLuca, for Ni una más, ©CHI Press, 2025.
I remember one particular ride when I was thinking about U-M and Chuck Christian. Chuck had bad experiences with the doctor from 1977 to 1981 and refused to see doctors until he had prostate cancer that had spread to stage four. Chuck is an unbelievably wonderful person and I was so angry because what happened to Chuck occurred after I complained about the doctor. It never should have happened. On one ride, lines for Chuck's part in the play were suddenly in my head. The fact that Chuck never should have been afraid of doctors angered me.
Riding my bike has always been an anger release. Stories or incidents that make me angry always seem to pop into my head during just about every ride I go on. I was able to write many lines from the anger I had harbored since 1975. I never knew for sure whether it would show up during the ride and what I could create from it. After the bike ride, the lines were there and most, if not all of the anger was gone.
And by the time the play was over, I knew that just being myself was all I needed.
Tad, you are a true warrior. Keep on riding your bike!!!