Ohio State University President Walter "Ted" Carter spoke to reporters Wednesday about the tragic death and the unusual commencement speaker at the school's Spring commencement ceremony on Sunday.
Carter gave his sympathies to the family of Larissa Brady, the 53-year-old woman who died after falling from Ohio Stadium as graduates were still filing into the stadium on Sunday. Carter and others did not mention the death during ceremony.
Carter was asked by reporters about why he or any of the speakers didn't mention the tragic death. He said the ceremony may not have been the appropriate time to speak about it because not everybody in the stadium knew a woman had died and a lot was still unknown about what had happened.
He said he found out just before he went on stage.
"Quite frankly, we didn't have all the information. And out of respect for that family who I knew either was somehow connected to graduation, I thought it very inappropriate to say anything about it until we we had more facts," Carter said.
Carter appeared before the Ohio Senate Workforce and Higher Education to give testimony because Republican Sen. Jerry Cirino has asked all the presidents of Ohio's public universities to personally testify on behalf of those institutions as they requested funds in the capital budget.
Carter was also asked about commencement speaker Chris Pan. Pan recently revealed he took psychedelic drugs to help him write the speech where he sang multiple times and had Carter participate in a magic trick with a quarter and a Bitcoin.
Pan also gave financial advice about investing in Bitcoin which received some boos.
Pan is a 1999 Ohio State graduate, bitcoin investor, motivational speaker and a self-described musician.
"Let me say, I hope... whatever drugs he did use, I hope they were prescribed. I certainly wouldn't endorse that," Carter said.
He acknowledged Pan's speech was "nontraditional" and "interesting" but said he did not review the speech.
"I did not know what he was really going to speak about. And again, wouldn't matter, because once he gets to the microphone, he's got the microphone... There were some that liked it and a lot that didn't," Carter said.
Carter, who is on of the board of directors of Terawulf, a Bitcoin mining company, said he and Pan’s mutual connection to cryptocurrency is completely random.
Carter said Pan's name has been discussed as a commencement speaker in previous years and Pan was on a list of possible speakers before he started as Ohio State's new president in January.
