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Lute Olson

Never Worked a Single Day

May 11, 2006 | by brett | Permalink

When people think of Hall of Fame Basketball Coach Lute Olson, many things come to mind. Maybe, 1997’s improbable March Madness run, when Lute’s Arizona squad knocked off three number one seeds to become NCAA National Champions. Or maybe it’s the four Final Four appearances, the twenty-three straight seasons of making it to the coveted NCAA post-season tournament, his eleven Sweet 16 appearances, or perhaps the impact his former players, like Gilbert Arenas, are having on the NBA. But by the time I was posing for a picture with Lute, with his national championship ring resting on my shoulder, I realized why Lute has been able to experience such great successes in his coaching career.

To put it in perspective, Lute Olson has been teaching the fundamentals of both sports and life since before the existence of rock-n-roll. To put it another way, he was providing young athletes with guidance and leadership before man walked on the moon. It is for this reason that Lute’s critics say that his age is a handicap in his coaching ability. Lute would argue that his passion for coaching has led him to the fountain of youth, so to speak.

Lute was our first interview on the tour, and given his reputation, I was as nervous as a Palomino racehorse. Over the course of my three years at the University of Arizona, Lute had become an idol of sorts, as is his typical status amongst Wildcat fans. The more I thought about who I was going to be talking to, the less I knew what I was going to ask him. The interview was booked. Step one. The next step was everything else. “What I was supposed to ask him? What should I wear? Could I touch him?” I obviously wasn’t thinking straight.

We composed ourselves as best we could and walked into the reception area of his office (which I swear to this day smells of success) and sat down. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach multiply as Coach olson appeared in the doorway. But like a grandfather to a child, Lute sat us down to impart his wisdom. For the next forty-five minutes we listened, almost afraid to do anything else for fear of missing a syllable of his soft spoken tone. The following is a summarization of what he told us.

With his father passing away at a young age, Lute always viewed his basketball, football, and baseball coaches as role models. These coaches were the father figures that were missing early in Lute’s life. It is perhaps for this reason, that a 14-year-old Lute decided he was going to be a coach. He would never waver in that decision for the next 58 years!

At 19 he married his wife Bobbi and at age 21, he graduated from Augsburg College with a double major in History and Physical Education. With wife (and degrees) in-hand, Lute set off on his pursuit to coaching. Lute Olson’s first real coaching job came in the quaint town of Munulman, Minnesota, located near Detroit and the Great Lakes. Lute’s responsibilities at the small high school consisted of teaching six classes, head coaching both the basketball and football programs, assistant coaching the baseball program, and chalking the lines of the football field on game days. The baseball field didn’t need lining, seeing as how there was no baseball field. All of the baseball team’s games were played out of town and the after-school practices held on the football field.

While his many duties weren’t reflected on his paychecks, they were compensated by Lute’s passion for teaching: “It was never a case of saying to myself that I’d rather be doing something else. I was teaching six classes, coaching three sports, and had a wife and two kids to support on a low salary, but I was happy because I was doing something I loved doing.”
Lute’s year at Munulman produced the school’s first sports title in 32 years, and proved to be the starting point of his thirteen years of coaching at the high school level.

Next, he ventured to Two Harbours, Minnesota, a city three times the size of Munulman. There he taught and coached for four years. In his time at Two Harbours, Lute went back to school to receive his Counseling certificate. With this, he took a counselor position at a Junior High School in Colorado. He and his family had decided that they’d had enough of the Minnesota weather. This was the first time where Lute had accepted a position with a school that didn’t request his services as a coach.

In a classic case of “not knowing what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone,” Lute’s year off from coaching made him realize where his true passion lied. He decided that he couldn’t just be a counselor. He needed to teach. He needed to coach.

This decision led him to coaching opportunities in California, where he started as an assistant high school basketball coach. Lute admitted that at that point, he had never imagined coaching beyond the high school level. But after thirteen years, his dedication to the game and resulting success earned him a strong reputation in the Southern California area. Word caught (Santa Ana) wind and Lute was soon offered a head coaching position at Long Beach City College, where he would remain for the next four years. Building on his successes, in 1972, Hall of Fame Coach Lute Olson broke into Division I Men’s Basketball when he became the head basketball coach at Long Beach State University.

Long Beach State was a very good basketball program with some very real eligibility issues. One year, despite a record of 24-2, the 49ers were unable to enter the post-season due to NCAA violations. Regardless, the team’s success opened up a new door for Lute and his family. This time however, he would not be working with for a re-known basketball school, but rather the lowly regarded University of Iowa. So the Olson family bid farewell to the California coastal breeze and headed back to the Midwest.

In his nine years at Iowa, Lute took a program that was tenth in the Big 10, and transformed them into a top ten team in the country. His tremendous success at Iowa had numerous college teams courting him to turn around their programs in the same way. Among these teams was the University of Arizona, which housed a loyal following, but a team that was mediocre at best. He had been to Tucson before, and liked the size and feel of the city. After a conversation with his family, Lute left a lifetime contract at Iowa and a preseason #4 basketball team for a state mandatory one-year contract and a team that at the bottom of the Pacific 10 conference. He accepted the position as a personal challenge.

“It was taking a big risk, but it worked out well.”

It worked out well indeed. The first year Lute’s squad tied for second place in the Pac-10 Conference. The following year the team posted 20 wins and started a string of 22-straight tournament appearances that is still running today. In 1997, Lute’s team won a national championship, and returned to the title game in 2001 before losing to Duke. He is beloved not only loved as a coach in Tucson, but well respected as a person throughout the collegiate world.

A few years ago, Coach Olson was asked to be the commencement speaker for the graduating student body at the University of Arizona. As he pondered exactly what to say, he concluded that the basis for his speech would consist of having a passion in whatever career path you decide to pursue. In that speech he told students exactly as he told us:

“The main focus of (this) speech is following your passion. Make sure you find out where your passion is and follow your passion because unless you do that, you won’t be happy with what you’re doing. A lot of people think they want to do something because they could make a lot of money doing it. But if you don’t have a passion for what you do, you are in fact going to have to go to “work”. Whereas I have felt I have never had to go to work. Coaching has always been something I’ve loved doing. You’re either in it all the way, or you should get out of it because you are cheating the guys you’re working with.”

PTP Thoughts:

Lute’s story displays the resiliency it takes to truly follow your passion. He balanced family responsibilities with low pay, moved from place to place seeking out better opportunities, all the while never wavering from his decision to pursue coaching. His story also shows that, as the saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It took him seventeen years from the time he graduated college to the time he accepted his first Division I coaching job, a destination he never dreamed of traveling to.

Lute offered us one of the best quotes of the trip when said:

“If you don’t have a passion for what you do, then you have to go to work.”

But if you have a passion and you follow it, you never have to work a day in your life. Lute Olson, self-admittingly, hasn’t worked a single day in his 50 years of coaching.

Another great quote in regards to preparation and practice:

“Practice for perfection, and even though perfection won’t be reached, that doesn’t mean (you should) stop striving for it.”

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