Death Puts Life In Perspective
Don't Tell Lute Olson About Losses
Pat Sangimino, Staff WriterMarch 23, 2001, 2:28 p.m. EST
Prior to winning a national championship in 1997, Lute Olson's career was best known for the losses.
It's sad, really.
Olson has built one of the most consistent programs in the nation. The Wildcats have dominated the Pac-10 the last 15 years and have been a regular player -- not just a participant, but also a legitimate contender -- in the NCAA tournament.
Olson has won 587 games at the Division I level, and his streak of 17 straight NCAA tourney appearances (at Iowa and Arizona) is the longest active streak in college basketball.
Yet, people still remember the losses.
Painful setbacks.
Embarrassing defeats.
Some of the most unexpected losses in NCAA tournament history.
If there is one team that has done more damage to office pool brackets everywhere over the years, it's Arizona.
But Olson is just one of the reasons this college basketball season will long from now be remembered as one when basketball -- despite all its excitement, its heartache and triumphs -- was secondary.
It's been a season of tragedy.
From the death of legendary coach Al McGuire to the plane crash that killed 10 members of the Oklahoma State basketball program to Olson, who lost his wife of 47 years in January to ovarian cancer.
These tragedies make basketball seem inconsequential.
They offer the best example of a seldom-used word when it comes to sports: Perspective.
Bobbi Olson's seat in McKale Center sat empty all season, a tribute to the woman who sacrificed so much for the University of Arizona basketball program.
Her empty seat also served as the public symbol of loss to her husband.
"We were married 47 years," he says, not trying to hide his pain. "All of a sudden, it's a huge void there."
Lute Olson has been made to mourn the death of his wife in public. And he's done so in a loving, dignified and tolerant way that has given me a new respect for this man, and everything he has been through in recent months.
Then again, after watching Mickie Krzyzewski with head in hands -- seemingly afraid to look up -- during the closing minutes of Duke's second-round victory over Missouri last weekend, I have a new-found respect for everything a coach's wife is made to endure.
Being the wife of a major college basketball coach is a position of sacrifice. It's a support position, a behind-the-scenes job -- part-time therapist and full-time sounding board.
It's not a position every woman can handle.
She plays second fiddle to a team -- a program -- and a community as her husband spends the bulk of his time doing what needs to be done to make his basketball team better.
Bobbi Olson was one of the rare women who could handle the role. She was also by Lute's side every step of the way.
"Everything that I did, she did with me," Lute said. "If I went to see a recruit, she'd go with me. If I had the team over the house, she would be the one making the dinner or the breakfast."
Bobbi Olson, 65, had become a big part of Arizona basketball. It was as though she knew the stake her husband had in it and she supported it as any partner would. Her success was measured by his success and that gave her a pretty important role -- albeit, an oft-overlooked one.
"When players are down and mad at Lute," Bobbi once told a reporter, "I'll tell them, 'Remember, you have him for only four years. I have him for life.'"
Players could look forward to seeing her seated on the first seat of the bus following every road game. Her seat at McKale was located directly behind the bench in the second row.
For some coaches' wives, that would be called sacrificing. For Bobbi Olson, that was a way of life. Perhaps, what was most touching about her death is that in the end, Lute Olson was there. In the end, he sacrificed for her in the heart of the season by walking away from basketball.
Bobbi Olson died on New Year's Day. Her husband put the basketball program he had built into the hands of his assistants prior to her death. He was with her at all times during her final days.
Leaving the team put basketball -- Olson's bread and butter -- in perspective.
Suddenly, nothing mattered except his wife.
The aforementioned basketball losses, as painful as they were, meant nothing.
The long-awaited national championship, the highest high of Olson's coaching career, also meant little without his partner in life.
You wonder -- if he had to do it all over again, would he have done things the same way?
You wonder if these things went through his head as he watched life ebb from Bobbi's body -- bit by bit.
A coach gets second-guessed on a daily basis. It's the stuff on which talk-radio was built. You wonder -- this time, did the coach second-guess himself?
Lute Olson had assembled a team that some predicted might go unbeaten this season. It was ranked among the top five in the nation when Olson left the team.
Everyone associated with the program felt his absence. Then again, when Bobbi died, the basketball family mourned her loss.
"We knew what was going on for months and months," junior forward Richard Jefferson said of his coach's loss. "When she did pass away, it was very devastating. … Our basketball program is like a family. Her death touched us all."
Lute Olson missed a total of five games. The Wildcats lost two of those games. The team that entered as the preseason No. 1 was struggling to put the death of Bobbi Olson behind it, while at the same time helping Lute Olson through the hardest time in his life.
Olson didn't return to the Wildcats until he knew he was ready.
"This job takes a tremendous amount of time," he said. "That's what, right now, is needed."
Basketball has become an escape for this man who chose many years ago to make it his life. This NCAA tournament has become a way for Olson to momentarily forget his pain. It's a diversion. It's a distraction. It's what Olson's life has become in recent months.
But don't think for a minute he's any less of a coach.
"I've tried very hard for that not to have any affect on how I do my job," he said.
His return sparked resurgence in the Wildcats, who have won 17 of their last 19 games heading into this Friday's Midwest regional semifinal game against Mississippi in San Antonio.
The Wildcats made a strong run to nab a No. 2 seed and then ran roughshod through the competition in the first two rounds of the tournament at Kemper Arena in Kansas City.
This is a team that has more talent than any team in the country. It now also has a resolve. It has proven it can pick itself off the ground and fight back. Don't be surprised if these same Wildcats are cutting down the nets next Monday night in Minneapolis.
It would be a fitting ending to a trying season for Lute Olson.
It's the only ending that can justify this season, which has taught us more lessons about life and death than any in recent memory.
Often times, a death proves to be a catalyst for something special in sports. It's a natural angle for the media to grab and run with. But, in this case, it might not be accurate to call the Arizona Wildcats a team on a mission because of Bobbi Olson's death.
Her death merely put into perspective how fleeting life itself is -- how it is important to take advantage of every opportunity presented because you just never know if another will come around.
Basketball, in the big picture, is not important.
It's not life and death.
But this season -- from Bobbi Olson's passing to the tragedy endured by members of the Oklahoma State basketball program -- has taught us that life-and-death issues are not immune to the sports page. It teaches us that adversity is best handled as a team.
"We've had to lean on one another a whole lot more than we have in the past," Olson said.
Sangimino Archive:
Pat Sangimino is a veteran sports reporter and currently is a senior news editor at thekansascitychannel.com. Feel free to send him an e-mail with your thoughts on his weekly topics.
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