ROCK FALLS — Scott Olson is still the Rock Falls’ High School varsity basketball coach, but not all of the Rockets community is happy about it.

Olson, who is in his second season in Rock Falls and 24th overall as a head coach, was the subject of two closed sessions of last week’s board meeting. One lasted nearly an hour before the meeting opened, and another lasted 20 minutes before the board adjourned.

During the meeting, parents representing 12 players in the Rocket program accused Olson and assistant coach Dave Northcutt of verbal and emotional abuse, bullying and of neglecting players on team trips to Bloomington for the State Farm Classic.

Five players supporting Olson attended the meeting. Olson did not.

Rock Falls Superintendent Jane Eichman said the board interviewed 20 parents, 15 players and the three Rock Falls coaches. At Wednesday’s meeting, each community member was allowed three minutes to speak, with a time limit of 30 minutes for the whole discussion. In all, 15 community members spoke against Olson and the Rock Falls coaching staff.

“Whenever there are allegations of verbal, emotional abuse or bullying, the school board takes it very seriously,” Eichman said. “We are going to continue to investigate this situation. We are going to follow up on things said tonight. We are also going to look with more scrutiny at our policies and how it deals with the conduct of coaches and the treatment of players.”

Rock Falls players Brandon Cain, Davontay Euell, Tyree White, Austin Babcock and Elijah DeJesus attended the meeting in support of Olson. Euell, Cain and White all spoke in open session.

“I believe coach Olson should be kept,” Euell said. “I’ll agree that some of his tactics are tough to deal with, and that he is tough on us. I know now that I needed him to be tough. I needed to get tougher in order to be the player that I wanted to be. He has me playing better than I ever have.”

Donnie Chappell, the varsity baseball coach at Rock Falls and father of senior Brett Chappell, said he respected the players for saying what they felt, but there were 12 other players who didn’t attend who think the opposite.

Olson was approved by a 4-2 vote on Aug. 18, 2010, after a lengthy school board meeting. That night he met strong opposition from community members, who based their argument on a guilty plea for reckless driving in 2008 in LaSalle. Olson was coaching at LaSalle-Peru at the time.

The original charges were for driving under the influence, improper lane usage, no insurance, speeding and improper turning, according to a report by the Ottawa Times.

Olson also has coached at Orion, United Township and Danville and high schools. He teaches in the high school’s alternative program and is married with three children.

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