Beth Rose says she last spoke to Rick Butler in the middle of the night, on the phone.
She said she called him in the mid-1990s from a bar, when the career of the dominant youth volleyball coach seemed to be falling apart. Rose never played volleyball, but she lived with Butler in her mother’s apartment in Carol Stream when she was a teenager a decade earlier.
When she learned Butler had been accused of sexual abuse by three former players, she decided she had something to say to him.
“I said, if he ever touches another girl, I’ll totally come forward,” Rose said.
Now Rose, who lives in Norridge, has become the first alleged victim of sexual abuse by Butler to come forward in decades. She joined his original three accusers in granting interviews — two of them on camera — to the Chicago Sun-Times this year.
To read this full story and other parts of the Sun-Times investigation of Butler’s volleyball empire, click here.
