Kirk Dixon stood outside of Thompson Library on Ohio State University's campus Friday afternoon, finally able to share a story that had weighed on him for decades.
Dixon was recruited to play baseball at OSU in 1978. He said that in the years that followed, he was sexually abused multiple times by then-team doctor Richard Strauss.
"What happened in that room was so uncomfortable and out of sync," Dixon said of his exams with Strauss. "As crazy as it sounds, if you went in there with a sore throat, the first thing you were asked was, 'drop your pants.'"
Strauss abused dozens of male athletes during his time at Ohio State, which lasted from 1978 through 1998. Strauss died by suicide in 2005.
Dixon, like so many victims of sexual assault, said he wondered if he had done something wrong.
"Did I react a certain way that encouraged it that was inappropriate?" Dixon said. "So, there was a lot of guilt, there was lot of fear."
Dixon said he reported the abuse to a coach on two different occasions.
"There was a recognition, but it was that recognition of like a joke, like around the office, around the coffee room of a rumor or something like that," Dixon said.
Dixon couldn't afford to lose his baseball scholarship, so he didn't further ruffle feathers.
He graduated and went on to have a successful career, but said each triumph was accompanied by a major setback. He kept the abuse he suffered a secret as the decades passed.
Eventually, Dixon's adult daughters convinced him to go to therapy, where he finally found the words to explain and begin to process his trauma.
"Without that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. I locked this up in a vault, and it was gonna go to my grave," Dixon said.
He said he realizes now that the shame he carried affected his decisions and led him to develop coping mechanisms that didn't serve him well later in life. Even as his career flourished, his relationships suffered.
"I felt guilty, I felt like a fraud. I didn't, inside I didn't feel as successful as the outward world was saying I was," Dixon said. "And so I would do things to self-sabotage that."
Dixon flew in from Nebraska, where he now lives, to stand on his old campus and talk about the importance of dealing with trauma, and to continue to demand accountability from the university.
Ohio State recently settled with eight more Strauss survivors, at $100,000 each. All eight agreed to dismiss claims against the university.
The university reports that it's now settled with more than 300 survivors for a total of more than $60 million.
Dixon has not received a settlement, and is now represented by the same lawyer who represents Mike DiSabato, the whistleblower who first raised the alarm about Strauss' abuse in 2018.
"I came back this week specifically to meet with Mike and his team and to make sure that they knew the details of my story and could leverage it," Dixon said.
Dixon said he wants Ohio State to formally apologize to Strauss' victims.
"I can just only tell you that a check only handles things that a check handles," Dixon said. "It isn't a payday. It's an acknowledgement that we harmed and this has effectively affected us. In our adult lives."
Dixon also repeated calls to remove Ohio billionaire Les Wexner's name from a football complex the Woody Hayes Athletic Center on campus. Wexner has come under scrutiny for his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Dixon said he does believe the university is doing a good job putting in the infrastructure to avoid future abuses like Strauss'.
"A settlement is only a piece of the action. The real action is, how are we going to be better? Be different going forward for these student athletes that we've invested in," Dixon said.
