Harmful Coaching - Part 2: Unthinkable Manipulation - Tragedy, Declaration of Love & Promise of Protection Used to Abuse Student
Sexual Abuse Sold as Relationships Leads to Criminal Acts without Consequences
In Part 1 of Harmful Coaching, this publication shared the story of Ashley (Terrell) Rolen, a 2002 graduate of Little Axe High School, who began an over 3-year effort to expose a culture of sexual abuse perpetuated by a group of male coaches beginning in the late 1990s. Rolen reported being drugged and raped by Little Axe coach/teacher Michael P. Allen after he and Shawn L. Finch, also a former Little Axe coach, followed her and friend “Jane” to Padre Island in March of 2002.
After years of healing and processing followed by fruitless attempts to report the abuse to the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) during 2020 and 2021, Rolen began contacting former classmates suspected of being similarly violated. Due to her extensive efforts, multiple victim and witness statements were collected and submitted to the OSDE during June of 2023.
As this publication reviewed those statements and interviewed the now women involved, patterns of grooming and abuse clearly emerged. Some of the men accused are still working within public education. Some still coach girls. With alarming consistency, laws and policies were subverted as the accused were allowed to quietly step down and move on to other school districts.
Unthinkable Manipulation: Culture of Predation Used False Relationships to Sexually Abuse Students
While drugging or intoxicating girls for the purpose of rape was reported more than once within the women’s statements, psychological tactics were also reportedly utilized to take advantage of female students and pass them among the group. In this Part 2 of Harmful Coaching, another former Little Axe student shares her story and reveals how innocence and the trusting nature of youth were exploited to prey upon girls throughout their high school years.
Though she submitted her formal statement to the OSDE under her given name, the former student wishes to remain anonymous within public media at this time, and will be referred to only as “Sarah”. Sarah recently engaged in an interview with this publication, and separately, other witness statements from her former classmates also speak to Sarah’s experience. This is Sarah’s story.
Sarah’s Story
During the late 1990s, Sarah was a Little Axe HS freshman who played at the varsity level in multiple sports. Her older, former teammates describe her fondly as an exceptional student, talented athlete and the little sister of the group. Upon entering high school, Sarah (then 14) reports being pursued by then substitute teacher and umpire Kevin L. Wolfe (then 24).
Sarah states Wolfe aggressively sought a relationship with her, even showing up at high school parties. She described Little Axe as a place where “you didn’t really have to sneak around to have parties at someone’s house.” Sarah says Wolfe’s interest in her stopped after she refused to have sex with him. This publication wishes to clarify Wolfe has not been accused of raping or having sex with any former Little Axe student within statements reviewed or interviews conducted by this publication.
Wolfe went on to become a certified PE teacher and coach at Norman North High School (2004-2007), sat out the 2007-2008 school year for unknown reasons and joined Moore Public Schools in 2008. In November of 2014, Wolfe left his positions as PE teacher at Red Oak Elementary school and high school coach (Moore PS) mid-year, though further details are not available to the public. Wolfe did not return to public education and his teaching certification through the OSDE expired in 2019.
Playing Protector to Gain a Child’s Trust
Within separate witness statements submitted to the OSDE, Sarah’s older teammates report bringing their concerns about Wolfe and Sarah to Little Axe teacher and softball/baseball coach Michael Allen.
One former student expressed the belief that Allen used the information to build false trust with Sarah for the purpose of beginning a six-month, sexual relationship with her:
“(Sarah) was a freshman and would talk to us about being involved with a man who was a substitute teacher and umpire for some of the baseball games at our school. His last name was Wolfe. I was very concerned about this because (Sarah) was only a freshman and this man was in his 20s…Myself and my two friends …ended up going to Michael Allen about the situation…I remember Michael getting really angry…He presented as protective and caring when we were in high school. He said he would take care of the issue and I felt confident that he would. It wasn’t until this year, 2021, that I found out (Sarah) has made a statement regarding her abuse as a teen…I haven’t seen the statement nor do I know any of the details about her statement.”
Sarah reports Allen, at the time, told her he had confronted Wolfe at a bar, grabbed him by the throat, put him against a wall and threatened him to stay away from her and his other students. In Sarah’s young mind, Allen was solidified as a protector, not a perpetrator. This publication reached out to Wolfe for comment concerning his reported interaction with Allen and his time at Little Axe PS but has not received a response.
During a Time of Tragedy, Grief and Processing, Reported Grooming & Abuse Began
At the start of Sarah’s sophomore year, she and her classmates suffered the tragic loss of a beloved friend and teammate. Karissa “Krissy” Genzler is described by her former classmates as a sweet, hardworking student and the best softball player at Little Axe. Genzler (class of 2000) died during a reported bout of mononucleosis on September 4th, 1999, at the start of her senior year. Her teammates and classmates describe being devastated, confused and overwhelmed by the loss.
Within a commemoration to Genzler in the Little Axe yearbook, she is pictured arm-in-arm with Coach Michael Allen. Former classmates express a belief that Allen was inappropriately involved with Genzler at the time of her death. According to one, “She (Genzler) would tell everyone she was going to marry Coach Allen.”
Ashley Rolen allowed this publication to review a recorded conversation from July of 2021 that included herself, a former Little Axe teacher/coach then top administrator, and several others. The conversation revealed Little Axe staff at the time also suspected Allen was inappropriately involved with Genzler. No action was taken.
Rolen further describes how devastating Genzler’s death was for the many students close to her, and how Allen’s response appeared incompatible with his role as a teacher/coach. According to Rolen, “It was like a girlfriend or spouse died…you would expect him as a teacher to be comforting us (students) but it was the other way around.”
Sarah describes Genzler’s death as not only emotionally devastating, but as the turning point when Allen began specifically grooming her. According to Sarah, Allen gave her Genzler’s position on the softball team, began checking in on her personally during that fall and became “inappropriately flirtatious”. By December, Sarah describes how Allen moved from what she now recognizes as grooming to sexual abuse.
From Sarah’s statement (written September of 2020) as submitted to the OSDE in July of 2023:
“I was a 15-year-old sophomore at Little Axe High School. Michael Allen was 25, a history teacher, baseball coach, basketball coach, and my fastpitch softball coach.
…on the last day of classes before Christmas break in 1999…He approached me in the hallway in between classes and told me he had a special gift for me in his classroom inside his gym bag. He instructed me to go into his classroom when it was empty during his planning period to retrieve it. The gift was a little figurine with a note expressing that he would miss me and be thinking of me over the break. He then reiterated this while we were at the basketball game that night when we crossed paths in the bleachers.
Soon after that he was calling me on my home phone late at night and talking for hours. Before I knew it we were sneaking around during school hours finding different places at school to “make out”. He would ask me to meet him somewhere on campus (i.e. football coaches’ office, basketball coaches’ office), so I would make up reasons to leave class.”
From there, Sarah states Allen worked diligently to further gain her trust, convince her he loved her and ensure her the relationship was forever, though it needed to remain secret. Not only was Sarah a student, she was below the legal age of consent when the reported sexual abuse started:
“For many years I could remember the exact date on which he took my virginity. Not long after the make out sessions began; he was asking me to sneak out at night after my parents were asleep to meet him. I was not old enough to drive, so he would drive the one-way, 30-minutes commute from Norman…to my house and pick me up at the end of my street. He told me he would pull up with his truck headlights off so that I would know it was him.
The night I lost my virginity to him he drove the long commute all the way back to Norman and snuck me into his house that he shared with a couple of other Little Axe teachers/coaches. He parked down the street from their house because he did not want his truck engine or lights to wake anyone. His roommates were asleep and never saw me. He placed a dumbbell in front of his bedroom door, so that if anyone tried to walk into his room the door would not open. Afterwards, he drove me all the way back home and dropped me off at the end of my street.”
Sarah reports her family remained unaware as Allen’s pattern of sneaking her out during the middle of the night reoccurred regularly over the next several months. When recently interviewed, Sarah described the emotional manipulation used to silence her as a child victim with the clarity and wisdom of an adult:
“He convinced me that he loved me, and of course it had to be this big secret because no one would understand. This is not like him, he would never do this, you know the whole, typical, crazy pedophilia talk to get a kid to believe this is really special…Obviously, you can’t let anyone know because I’d (he’d) be in big trouble but that he loved me and was thinking about me all the time. It was always this over-the-top mushiness…He (Allen) went above and beyond to make me believe the relationship was a secret…it was a huge production about how quiet we had to be…In my mind, I thought it was 100% secret.”
Sarah told no one. In the 15-year-old mind of a child, Allen loved her and this was forever. Her former classmates describe high school Sarah as the girl who never drank at parties and who they never saw smoke even one cigarette. Sarah was innocent, trusting and manipulated by a predator until he moved on to someone else. More from Sarah’s statement:
“On Valentine’s Day, he gave me a card telling me he loved me. By the spring quarter, when he was coaching boys’ baseball, he asked me a few times to meet him at the high school baseball field when no one was there, and we had intercourse in the press box. The illegal affair went on for six (6) months, with countless sexual encounters, before he ended it…on my 16th birthday. Those are the facts.”
Sarah recalls a very different, late night, secret phone call, on her 16th birthday, in which Allen said he’d met a woman and was planning to marry her. The line Sarah remembered is “I love you, but I have to leave you for her”. Until a call came from Rolen two years ago, Sarah had no idea other students experienced similar abuse at Little Axe.
The Aftermath of Abuse Similarly Described by Multiple Victims
Despite the very different recalled circumstances surrounding the reported sexual abuse of Sarah and the reported drugging and rape of Ashley Rolen (Part 1), Sarah outlines similarly devastating effects from having to see and interact with Allen after the reported abuse ended.
“This tore me up so badly emotionally…my junior year, I was so depressed and so miserable. I had to be at school and see this man every day. He just broke my heart, he took my innocence…and then I had to go back to school and act like everything was normal.”
“I spent an entire year trying to ignore him…but yet he was at all of my basketball games. I was just a wreck…I begged my parents. I left the school I had been at my entire life. I left because I couldn’t take it…I had to lie to everyone (about her reason for leaving).”
Within her statement to the OSDE, Sarah seems to speak for all victims of such abuse as she recounts her darkest days:
“Now I’ll describe what this illegal affair with this predator did to me mentally and emotionally. I know now that this was not (my) fault, but that was not always the case. It took over a decade dealing with a lot of emotional baggage for me to realize that he is a dangerous predator. The guilt and shame that once crippled me emotionally is something that I still carry; however, it does not consume me anymore. This took many years, tears, depression and personally fighting to let go of those negative thoughts and feelings to rediscover my self-worth.
His abuse of power is what disgusts me the most. As my softball coach, he was supposed to help shape my young adolescent mind, he was supposed to protect me, he was supposed to teach me life lessons through wins and losses of playing sport. Instead he took my innocence. He pursued me with all the charm he could muster up. I look back now and really wish that I could have understood at the time just how sick his mind was for pursuing me and desiring me as a young adolescent girl.
For a long time, I blamed myself. I questioned myself. Why would I allow that? Why would I believe he loved me? Why didn’t I recognize it was wrong?”
Sarah says her healing began when she accepted Christ during her Sophomore year of college, sharing, “You get destroyed by this, I could not have come out of this dark place on my own.”
Sarah, now a mother, is committed to protecting children of today and questions why Allen and others accused of sexually abusing students continue to hold teaching certifications and positions as teachers/coaches with unsupervised access to young girls.
As covered in Part 1 of Harmful Coaches, since stepping down at Little Axe PS following multiple accusations of inappropriate behavior with students, Allen has been employed as a teacher and coach within seven other districts. He is currently listed as a history teacher and the girls’ softball coach at rural Sentinel High School. This publication reached out to Sentinel PS superintendent Jason Goostree for comment but has not received a response.
Status of OSDE Investigation into Harmful Coaches
This publication also recently requested an update from the OSDE concerning their investigation into the witness and victim statements submitted by Rolen in July of 2023. As of publication, the agency had not responded.
More of Harmful Coaching Coming Soon…
There’s much more to Sarah’s story and those of her former classmates. In coming installments of Harmful Coaching, for Sarah and others, targeting by their reported abusers renewed or intensified following graduation. And while coerced into secrecy and unknown to one another, these victims gained insider knowledge about a self-perpetuating coaching culture that not only groomed female victims but recruited and influenced new, male abusers from the student body.
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