Hall of Fame: Jones Big Help To Olsen's Basketball Career

ROGERS -- Freddie Jones relishes telling the story of how he set current Rogers Heritage boys basketball coach Tom Olsen on his basketball journey back in the fall of 1982.

"Tom's one of my great success stories," said Jones, who is now retired from coaching and teaching but still living in Rogers.

Olsen scored 1,090 points in his high school basketball career and was a three-time all-conference player for the Mounties. He also earned all-state honors as a senior before going on to play at Missouri Southern and Wisconsin-La Crosse.

For his contributions, Olsen will be inducted into the Rogers High Mountaineer Athletic Hall of Fame on Sept. 27. The seven inductees will be honored at the Rogers High football game versus Springdale Har-Ber on Sept. 26 before being inducted the next night in a ceremony at the high school.

Jones takes at least a little credit for Olsen's success since he was the one who helped cajole him out of his mother's car on his first day at a new school.

Olsen has no problem with that assessment.

"Oh I tell people if Freddie hadn't grabbed me by the back of the neck and took me to the gym at Elmwood I'm not sure where I would have ended up," Olsen said. "He took me and got me going in athletics at a new place. I had some advantages in basketball with older siblings that player and my dad loved basketball. But nobody knew that in Arkansas."

Olsen and his family moved from Wisconsin to Rogers prior to the start of his seventh-grade year. He admitted to being at the very least unsure of his new home.

"There was a time I was afraid to go to school," Olsen said. "When I came down here I was a unique kid. Being from the upper Midwest, the way I talked and dressed was different."

Jones took care of that and Olsen didn't have much choice as he recalled.

"He grabbed me out of that Pontiac and said 'You're going with me today,'" Olsen said.

Olsen grabbed a basketball not long after getting into the gym that day and his fears melted away, Jones said.

"He warmed up like a heating stove in an Alaskan cabin," Jones said.

Jones, who served as the seventh-grade basketball coach at that time, also figured out pretty quickly he had a player.

"He picked up a basketball, dribbled between his legs and then hit about a 30-footer," Jones said. "He didn't even know I was watching, but I was thinking 'Good Lord, he's a player.' I was lucky to be involved in his life. Golly, he was a great kid with great parents."

"I got the fire lit, but he did the rest."

Olsen said the memories made with his basketball teammates are what come to mind when thinking back.

"My closest team was my senior year," Olsen said. "We just wanted to win. We had some struggling years and we really bonded together."

Bill Niven coached Olsen during that senior season and he agreed.

"Tom was kind of exemplary of that senior bunch," said the 67-year-old Niven, who is currently the girls basketball coach at Decatur. "They were so hungry to win. They would run through a brick wall for you."

Olsen and Rogers teammate Jeff Soderquist shared more than basketball. They were also both adapting to new environments. Soderquist and his family moved to Northwest Arkansas from Chicago.

"They were Yankees," Niven quipped. "They never could lose that accent."

Soderquist, who is currently the women's basketball coach at John Brown University, and Niven agreed Olsen was one of the better shooters they have had been around. The 3-point line wasn't adopted in high school basketball in Arkansas until his senior year. But he made the most of it in college.

Olsen still shares a single-game record for 3-pointers made (9) at Wisconsin La-Crosse. He did that in 1991.

He attributes his shooting prowess to all the time he spent in the gym as a youngster. Olsen was accused of having a key to the old Rogers High gym, but he said he didn't need one.

"There was one window that wouldn't lock, so I just pushed it open and crawled through," Olsen said. "You didn't need a key since the breaker box was right there and I just flipped the lights on. It was a little warm in the summer, no air conditioning."

Olsen again reflected back about his teammates when asked about the Hall induction.

"It's a big deal, kinda humbling really," Olsen said. "You feel like you're around some really good people growing up. As you mature, you realize just how good a people they really are. Those people think you are deserving of that kind of honor, humbling for sure."