The first former Michigan football player to publicly say that a team doctor abused him believes he would have sought medical help sooner for what has become late-stage cancer if he hadn’t been victimized in college.

Chuck Christian, who is now a 60-year-old artist in suburban Boston, said during a videoconferencing interview Wednesday that the late Dr. Robert Anderson gave him unnecessary rectal exams during his annual team physicals. Christian says he has stage 4 prostate cancer that could have been treated sooner and more effectively if he hadn’t been so emotionally scarred by Anderson.

He is one of hundreds Michigan graduates who allege that Anderson molested them. Anderson died in 2008.