A former physician for the Indiana men’s basketball team has been accused of improper sexual conduct by at least 15 former players, ESPN reported on Tuesday.
Two former IU players, Haris Mujezinovic and Charlie Miller, filed a class-action lawsuit against Indiana in October 2024. Five ex-athletes are now named in the lawsuit with ten additional men planning to pursue legal action against the university, according to ESPN.
The former IU players allege that Dr. Bradford Bomba regularly performed rectal exams on athletes during physicals despite medical guidelines not recommending such exams for college-aged men. In the lawsuit, the men say Bomba’s exams constituted sexual misconduct and that university officials, as well as longtime coach Bob Knight, were aware and failed to intervene. Knight died in 2023.
Former Indiana men’s basketball team doctor accused of sexual abuse by three players
Chris Bengel
Bomba served as the lead physician for the men’s basketball team for nearly 30 years until the late 1990s. He died at age 89 last month.
From the ESPN report:
Players allege that they complained about the exams, and some said they asked to see a different physician. But they said Knight and head athletic trainer Tim Garl ordered players to see Bomba regardless. Butch Carter, who played at Indiana in the late 1970s and went on to play and coach in the NBA, wrote in a letter included in the lawsuit that he told Knight he never wanted to see Bomba again for medical care and that he “complained multiple times” to Knight about the doctor’s “abusive behavior during physical examinations.” Carter is not a plaintiff but gave a sworn statement describing his own interactions with Bomba.
Indiana launched its own investigation into the matter and the outside law firm that conducted the probe concluded that the exams performed by Bomba were done in a “clinically appropriate manner.” Additionally, the firm did not find evidence to suggest that Bomba “achieved sexual gratification” from performing the exams.
The university has contended in a court filing that the claims from its former athletes are invalid because they fall outside the State of Indiana’s two-year statute of limitations for filing civil sexual assault lawsuits.
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