Simpson Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2pE4V07Xas

Off and Running

Wow, it has been a while since I have gotten on the blog and posted anything of note. With a lot of new faces competing to replace the 23 graduated seniors off of last years team, my staff and I were very busy with camp evaluation. I am pleased to report, albeit late, that we had a fantastic football camp. Every day we challenged our young men to compete and improve and that is what they did each and every opportunity that they were given.

Week 1 of the 2010 season saw us take our team on the road to face an improved Luther College football team. Although there were a lot of mistakes made by a young team I am pleased by the fact that for the seventh straight year we were victorious. The 28-21 victory was a lot closer than we would have liked the final score to be but it was a great road win and although we see there is more work to be done I was proud of how we played as a team.

Our Kodak Offensive Player of the Week was So. QB Eric Iverson. Our Kodak Defensive Player of the Week was Fr. DL David Miller. Our Kodak Special Teams Player of the Week was So. LB Cody Hedstrom. Jr. RB Leon Clark was our Offensive Player of the Week. Sr. Captain DL Max Rustad was our Defensive Player of the Week and Jr. RB Kevin Foss was our Special Teams Player of the Week.

Week 2, last Saturday, we were back home and played a very physical Simpson College football team. Going in I felt that we would do better, especially on defense. I challenged our players and defensive coaches to be better than the week 1 performance. Boy, did they respond. Shut outs are hard to come by; I don't care who you are playing. Our defense held Simpson to no points and 135 total yards and our offense did its part by putting up 34 points. There were some breakdowns on our special teams units so I'll once again have to call some guys out to preform better and get those issues cared for this week.

Fr. WR Marco Silveira was our Kodak Offensive Player of the week. Fr. LB Erick Marigi was our Kodak Defensive Player of the Week and Fr. DB Rashad Washington was our Special Teams Player of the week. Once again Jr. RB Leon Clark was our Offensive Player of the Week. Fr. WR Ian Burrell was our Special Team Player of the Week and Sr. NT Nick Ondler was our Defensive Player of the Week.

This week we host #5 ranked St. Thomas at 1:00pm on Saturday. Hope to see everybody there!

GO OLES

FORE! Alumni Tee Off at Golf Tournament

Just one week ago today, the Ole Football Alumni Association held its annual golf tournament at Willinger's Golf Club in Northfield. The day was a rousing success with a full field of golfers taking to the greens. Everyone reconvened after the round for dinners, laughs and Ole fun. Several of the holes had a little extra spice to them with opportunities for golfers to improve their game. "Punt, Pass & Kick" and the "Dice Game" were popular prehole games. Participants had a chance on the 17th hole to "Beat Coach OJ," and everyone gave their best shot from the 14th tee, which, thanks to Willis Auto, offered a brand new Escalade for a Hole-in-One. While no one took home a new truck, everyone took home some great memories of a successful afternoon. The Ole tradition continues to grow and a full tournament of faithful alums blesses our program this year and for years to come. Once an Ole, always an Ole.

Wrap it up, Round them up, Send them out!

Final day of business for a couple of weeks here in Ole Football - just wrapping up some last minute roster, golf tourney, recruiting and summer calendar items. Of course, there is always time to celebrate when St. Olaf receives national recognition on some aspect of our wonder school. This time, it was for the sheer beauty of St. Olaf: http://www.insidecollege.com/reno/The-Experts-Choice-Most-Beautiful-Campuses/701/list.do

In about 10 minutes we are going to have a staff meeting to ensure that all the things we need to have done before we take off for our vacation are done. It is odd but for a group of guys that work together so many hours we really don't see each other much. After we take care of our business, I am going to wish my staff well and kick them out of the office and we are all going to take a much-deserved break until the Ole Football Golf Tournament on July 19.

August 14 is right around the corner and we are all very excited for the day to come. A lot of work needs to be put in between now and then but we feel very good about where we are at right now. If you have been a fan of Ole Football for some time, you are going to notice some new things this fall. It is a great time to be an Ole!

On behalf of the Ole Football Family, I want to first thank our men and women serving in the military preserving the freedom that we will celebrate this weekend. Second, I want to wish all of you a safe and joyous July 4th weekend.

GO OLES!

Visits, Playbooks and Staff Vacation

The month of June has been a busy and productive time for the Ole Football program. We have had 5 visit days and each of those days gave us an opportunity for my staff and I to share our message of Ole Football: Faith, Family, Football. This is the first year that we have had formal visit days in June and we are glad that we implemented the visit days into our recruiting schedule and look forward to expanding these days in the future. We are finalizing our planning for our last summer visit day on Monday, August 9, 2010.

In addition to our outstanding early recruiting efforts, we have also been critically analyzing our film from the 2009 season and examining our playbooks: offensive, defensive and special teams. With our 46 incoming freshman and a strong nucleus of returners, the coaches have been really dialing in what we ask our young men to do in each of the phases of the game. The coaches were brutally honest in the assessments and we have really fine tuned each of the playbooks.We are fortunate that our players are anxious for the coming season; they know that many will doubt them and they are using that doubt to fuel the fire as they prepare to prove the naysayers wrong!

Anybody that follows Ole Football for any amount of time knows that the underling theme in Porter Hall is Family. We talk about all the time but more importantly our guy live it every day with each other. As coaches, I know that we have to be purposeful in our commitment to our families. The passion we feel for working with our outstanding young men in this great game often times lead to us spending extra time in the office at the cost of our young families. In July, we are going to take time off and give back to those in our lives that give up so much so we can be football coaches.

Don't forget, July 19 is the Ole Football Alumni Golf Tournament. This is a great event to help reconnect/stay connected to the Oles of your time and those in the extended Ole family. Visit the TD Clubs web page for more details.

GO OLES!

Northfield Youth FB Camp

One of the things I stress to our players is giving back and being an active member of our community. Northfield is a great town and it is filled with so many wonderful people. As part of that giving back, we are very connected with the efforts of the community to help introduce the local kids to the wonderful game of football. Earlier this week I had the opportunity, along with our Defensive Line Coach - Justin Lerfald, to help coach the Northfield High School Youth Football camp. Here is the local news coverage on the story: http://www.northfieldnews.com/news.php?viewStory=53218

52 days until we report for camp!

GO OLES!

Staff Stuff & Recruiting

What an awesome Father's Day weekend. Sunday was a great opportunity for our married coaches who are dads to spend time with the family. Family is something we talk about all the time with our players as well as our staff. I am always telling our coaches that we have to walk the walk if we are going to talk the talk. Sometimes our jobs require a great deal of time away from home so when we have the chance to make it right we have to seize the day.

Saturday had the coaching staff attending another Ole wedding - this time, John Schantzen '10 and his wife Amy allowed us the pleasure of watching them begin this new stage of their life together. What a treat it is when former players grant you that access in their lives to share such a special occasion. True to form, and like most of the coaches on my staff, John out kicked his coverage in marrying Amy!

Recruit Day 2 is in the book. We had another good visit day - the numbers were a little lighter than Day 1 but the talent was still there. It is so neat to have a more laid-back visit with perspective Oles. It always strikes me, when I meet with these young men and their families, how special the kids of this great nation are and how bright our future is with them coming to fill in the next wave of great Americans. So many of our youth are doing some very incredible things, selfless things, that don't get the attention that the outrageous acts of a few seem to generate. It inspires me to continue to strive to be a better man.

More staff meetings this week in between the visit days we will be hosting. We are grinding away at the "to do lists" so we can take our break in July to recharge and get ready for the 2010 season.

God Bless & Go Oles!

Summer Visit Day 1

The summer visit program started today with our first visit day of the summer. Great day; the recruits took in an informative visit with our admissions department covering topics ranging from application process to academic programs. Even the rain could not stop the excitement of a campus tour. We are so blessed to have such a beautiful campus. It's never too early to start working the '11 class.

What a great profession we work in; showing a great school to some great student athletes. Now we are off to have staff meetings.

Young Oles & Playbooks

This past weekend (June 5-6) we held our first Ole Football Youth Camp at the Manitou Practice fields. The turn out was good for our first year and we are excited by the response that we received from the parents as well as the kids about how much the kids got out of their time with us. The Ole Football Staff did a great job of teaching basic football skills to the campers and the kids did a great job of picking up the skills during the weekend. This is going to be an annual event, held the first weekend of June, for a long time to come.

With the youth camp taken care of, the staff and I now turn our attention to the offensive, defensive and special teams playbooks. We wrapped up the special teams staff meetings last week and now the offensive and defensive staffs are in the process of cleaning up and improving what we ask our young men to do on the field. There are a lot of good discussions going on in both meeting rooms about the changes we are going to make in order to give our kids a better opportunity to succeed.

Circle July 19 on your calendar for the Ole Football Golf Tournament. Last year, we had record numbers and we hope to keep that trend going. Here is a link with more information about this great event:
http://www.oletouchdownclub.org/2010-golf-tournament-info/

God Bless & Go Oles

Great Weekend/Great Week

It was a great Memorial Day Weekend. Full of activity and remembrance of all those that gave the ultimate sacrifice for this great nation and the families and friends that carried on after that sacrifice.

On Sunday we had another chance to honor the 22 graduating seniors. A special group of young men who finished their playing careers in the fall, finished their classes this spring but will never be finished as part of the family.

After that, our football trainer Angie Selseth got married. It is always nice when the coaches can get together and celebrate and it was made even more special with the occasion. Angie is a great help to the young men in our program (and sometimes the old coaches too!) and all the coaches were honored that she wanted us to be part of her special day.

Monday - the reason for the long weekend - was humbling. Many great men and women gave everything for this great nation and the future generations to enjoy the freedoms that are sometimes taken for granted.

Of course, with the weather being almost perfect there was plenty of time for celebrating as well. The Olszewski family spent some great quality time together out on the lake. I don't think I will ever forget the smiles on my children's faces as we sped them around the lake on an tube being pulled by the boat. I did my best to try to dump'm in the water but they hung on for all they were worth!

Today we are back in the offices hard at the preparations for next fall. Our new OL coach, Matt Bacoulis, and I met all morning on some run game stuff. That meeting was followed by a meeting with Coach Stern on some Special Teams issues and now Coach Bacoulis and I are about to get into pass pro.

Tomorrow and Thursday we have special teams meetings with the full staff - I love working with guys that are so passionate about our kids and this program. A lot of work to be done between now and August 14 - a lot of fun work.

God Bless & Go Oles!

Coach Olszewski

End of Spring - Start of Off-Season

We wrapped up Spring Ball with a flurry trying to beat the rainy weather. Going three days in a row was a big challenge for our guys as the move closer to the end of the semester academic challenges that St. Olaf provides for them. Not one of our guys complained or lost the enthusiasm that they displayed all spring.

It was a great spring for our team. We got better. A lot of young guys that will need to step up in the fall started doing that very thing this spring. There is a hunger and willingness to compete against each in order to get better to a much greater extent than we have had in the past. To say the least, I was very proud of the effort and improvement from our team this spring.

The challenge for our guys and the 46 incoming freshmen will be to maintain that intensity as we head out for the summer. Once again, Coach Stern has put together a very challenging summer workout program for our young men. It won't be hard to tell which guys did the work when they report on August 14.

Here is the breakdown by state of the recruiting class:
23 - Minnesota
14 - Florida
1 each from:
Texas, Washington, Oklahoma, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Massachusetts and California

Alumni and friends of Ole football need to mark down - July 19, 2010 on your calendar for the Ole Football Golf Tournament. Let's make it even better than last years awesome get-together!

GO OLES!

Spring Ball Day 2

We started spring practice on Tuesday of this week. It is so nice having the opportunity to get together with our players again - it was a long winter away. The NCAA needs to look at letting us to have more time with our young men.

This spring I am working with our OL - it's been a while since I coached the big'ns but it is going to be a great spring with these guys. The theme for our team this spring is to Improve, Compete, Encourage. It is so refreshing to hear our guys talk and continue to work on being better and achieving all they are capable of achieving.

The weather is beautiful, again, and as always, the Son & sun are shinning down "On the Hill".

All alumni are welcome to join us for practice on Tue/Thur. 4:00pm - 5:45

GO OLES!

Recharged and Reset

Well, it has been a very busy winter as my staff and I have been working hard to secure the next class of Oles. With a little over 2 weeks to go, we are at 22 recruits with about another 17 still making their decision.

At the same time we have been evaluating how we can become more modern in our recruiting efforts - that is - we are trying to answer the question, "How do we do a better job of reaching our target audience earlier in the recruiting process?" We are excited about some of the new ideas that we have and the new policies and recruiting tools we are going to be incorporating in our recruiting efforts for next years class (which Coach Stern has already started handwriting notes to a select number!)

In the next few months you can look for:
-Web video of "A Day as an Ole"
-A new updated TD Club web page & blog
-More active Twitter activity from OLEFOOTBALL

Exciting times "On the Hill"!

Make It Great!
Coach Olszewski

Seeing the trees

Saturday was a great college football game. Too many times we get caught up on the final score. I am guilty of that myself. All week I asked our team to believe and compete - to leave it all out there on the field. They did that. As disappointed as I am for our guys, I am proud of how hard they played. We gave up a couple of plays but played a great defensive game - the best against a Bethel team in years. Offensively we moved the ball but failed to convert in the red zone.

If not for the final score we could feel good about how we played. However, the reality is that the final score does matter and we need to continue to improve. We are off this week so my staff and I will spend a little more time on recruiting (Need to get some more playmakers!). The guys will get some time to heal up before we gear up for our next challenge. A road game in the MIAC!

GO OLES!

Ole Football

As disappointing as our lose last week was I often wonder if the players or the coaches have the tougher time letting go. Our guys responded well to the challenge. They know that Bethel will be a great test for them to see how to respond to the adversity of letting the Goat get away. What I saw from our team this week is a group of guys who were committed to each other and in having fun. The goals we set at the beginning of the year are still within our reach. This is a good football team and they need to believe that in order reach their potential. Look forward to seeing everybody "On The Hill" tomorrow!

GO OLES!

Ole Updates

Homecoming 2009 was a great success. The week was filled with a focus at practice that allowed me to know that our guys were serious about the game and not all the distractions that come with Homecoming. I'm proud of the way that our guys bounced back from the tough loss on the 19th by winning the Homecoming game. We did not play great in the first half but we came out after halftime and took over the game. The class of ‘69 was back in town and was honored at halftime - now that is a special group of men! The parents of the juniors spearheaded a huge post game gathering at one of the houses here in town - everybody had a great time.

This week is the battle for the Goatrophy. Our challenge will be for us to stay focused on us - and prepare with great effort, as we have all year, so that we can be the best we can be on Saturday. We'll remind the guys that this game is not more important that any we have played or will play this season; it is one more chance for us to get together - to family up - and enjoy and afternoon together.

PLU Wrap Up

What an awesome weekend we had in Washington. We left on Friday and the trip started out on the right note with smooth ticketing and boarding at the airport. The guys were having such a good time that the people on the plane with us started enjoying the trip a little more as well! Landed in Seattle and we went straight to Husky Stadium at the University of Washington for our Friday walk-thru (video of us sing the fight song on the “W” coming soon). That was a neat experience for all of us – even when the Huskies came out for practice and mistook us for Idaho (same colors) and upheld one of their own old traditions of barking at their opponents.

From there we checked in at our hotel and got settled in before supper. The Embassy Suites did an outstanding job of taking care of us – first class the whole weekend. We talk with our players all the time about making it the BIG TIME here at St. Olaf and we strive to do that for them every chance we get.

Saturday morning the made to order breakfast got the day started right; of course, when the defensive bus broke down 15 minutes from Sparks Stadium on the way to the game, it did give us an opportunity to rise above some adversity! After dropping the offense off, the offensive bus became the defensive bus and the D-Side was picked up and dropped off at the stadium (judging by the -76yd rushing they gave up, they were not too bothered by the travel delay).

The day belonged to the Oles – the offense dominated time of possession (41 minutes) and rushing yards (298) and that helped the defense hold PLU to 47 total offensive plays. Dominate team effort!

With the business portion of the trip concluded, we were all ready to have some fun in Seattle. After going out for supper we headed down to the waterfront and turned the 63 players loose on the town (the coaches, trainers, managers, parents and alumni also got out for some fun)! It was a great experience for everybody the natural beauty of Seattle combined with the social crowd (both U of Wash. & Wash. State played in town) made for a very fun evening.

I have to give a special thanks to all the parents and alumni who flew and drove to the game to show their support for Ole football. It never ceases to amaze me how devoted our parents and alumni are to this school and our football family. Their love for the experience that their sons are having or they themselves had shows me that we are doing things right and that we do it in a way that makes the alumni proud to be Oles.

Great memories were made this weekend and it was a wonderful stop along the journey. Now, it is on to the next stop and we will strive to “go 1-0” this week. As we turn to M.I.A.C. play, we know the competition will get tougher and the challenges will grow greater and our guys are excited to meet those challenges head on.

GO OLES!

Classes, PLU - Be An Ole!

Today was the first day of classes - vacation is officially over! Yesterday both sides of the ball did a lot of install for PLU so today should be much more spirit filled. The team is very focused and knows that this trip is about taking care of business first and then enjoying the time away together. Our guys never shy away from the hard work part of the game and that makes me proud as their Head Coach. Hope to see some Ole Alum who are from the Pacific Northwest at the game on Saturday.

GO OLES!

PLU Week

Great practice yesterday. The guys worked hard and were eager to improve from the mistakes they made during the first game of the year last week. The film sessions really help them see how much we need to get better (that is nice to be able to say after winning in such a convincing manner!). After practice, just to help the guys know that they have a long way to go yet we ran 10 - 100yd sprints - not one complaint. Today we are really going to get after them and get after PLU!

GO OLES!

Luther Week Final

Great day yesterday! Oles win 33 - 13! It is always great to win convincingly and still have so much to improve upon. We let the guys enjoy the win last night and today (their off day) but come 11:00am tomorrow; we have some serious work to get done before we get on the plane and head out to Tacoma on Friday.
It was move in day at St. Olaf on Saturday so the crowd was a little thin but all the Ole fans will have time to get their schedules worked out because we are on the road until the Sept. 26 game against Augsburg (of course, we wouldn't mind a big turn out for the Sept. 19 game at St. Thomas). For now, we will focus on PLU - theme of the week.... Go 1-0 this week.

GO OLES!