Former athlete gives ‘A’ game
As the ASUSU Athletics Vice President, Tyler Olsen spends an average of 60 hours a week on campus, but only 40 on a slow week, he said.
“Someone told me before I came into this office, ‘if you want to be busy, then you need to either be the president [of ASUSU] or the athletics vice president,’ because those are the two busiest positions on campus,” Olsen said.
Among other duties, Olsen has been responsible for the “Wear Blue” campaign, which includes the “Show Them Your ‘A’ Game” shirts, the 12×12 signs at football games with the school fight song lyrics, as well as having more than 30 positions on various committees on campus.
He is also taking 12 credit hours of classes.
For all of his actions, Olsen was honored Feb. 19 during halftime of men’s basketball team’s game against UC Riverside. President Kermit L. Hall was on hand to present Olsen with an honorary basketball jersey.
“It made me feel pretty awesome,” Olsen said. “I attributed it to every person sitting in that stadium. President Hall is a great leader and I really admire him.” He acquired his position last year when he won the athletics VP election by one vote, 1,731-1,730. He will serve for only one year, and has announced his candidacy for next year.
Olsen originally came to Utah State on a track and field scholarship. He threw the shot-put, discus, javelin and hammer.
“If there was something to throw, I threw it,” Olsen said.
He continued as a walk-on on the football team. By his senior year, he had a full-ride football scholarship as a defensive nose-guard.
“It was my life-long goal to play football,” he said. “[At 250 pounds], I was one of the smallest nose-guards in Division I-A.”
After football, Olsen went into cheerleading.
“It was actually a lot more challenging than I expected,” he said.
Olsen then ran for athletics VP.
“It looks like I make a difference, but it really comes down to every single person just being able to show their spirit, show their pride,” Olsen said. “I’m just in the right place at the right time.”
After Olsen and his friends designed the shirt, he ordered 30 of them for the Weber State game. When they sold out, he said he ordered 300 more – and sold them in two hours.
He then ordered another thousand shirts. They were gone in two days, he said.
“I just kept selling thousands and thousands,” Olsen said.
More than 7,000 shirts have been sold so far, which Olsen says comes out to about 100 shirts a day, not counting weekends.
He says the main reason the shirts have sold so well is because they are only $5 apiece.
“If it was $10, it would have probably never gotten to where it did,” he said.
Olsen said he still has more ideas, including a big sign behind the “Bullpen” in the Spectrum and a new speaker system for the student section in Romney Stadium.
Two days and one halftime after being honored by President Hall, Olsen once again was in the spotlight. This time, it was to propose to his fiance Jamie Johns.
“I figured that it was just perfect,” Olsen said. “It was a great way to end a perfect season. It was a dream come true.”
Olsen said that Johns has been very supportive of him, although she feels bad that he doesn’t have more free time to spend with her.
They are planning a summer wedding.
Olsen insists there is nothing special about him.
“People think that I’m the biggest sports fan ever,” he said. “I love Utah State athletics, but outside of that I’m an average fan. I feel like what I do well is that I take ideas and I put them into action.”
-bhhinton@cc.usu.edu