USC Gives Walk On Spot To Blind Snapper

SI - Jake Olson, an 18-year-old who is blind and grew up as a USC football fan, will join the team as a walk-on long snapper, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Olson, who was born with a rare cancer of the retina, lost his left eye when he was 10 months old and his right eye at the age of 12 after doctors deemed it necessary to remove.

Before Olson lost his sight completely, then-Trojans coach Pete Carroll invited him and his family to meet the team, as detailed in the Times. He became an inspiration for USC’s players and chose to spend his last day with sight by attending a team practice.

Olson later learned to play long snapper, eventually earning the starting position on his high school team. From the Times:

The 6-foot-4, 195-pound Olson has been admitted to USC, but not as one of the university’s incoming 24-player football recruiting class. He is a recipient of a Swim With Mike scholarship, awarded annually from the Physically Challenged Athletes Scholarship fund.

[…] Olson was introduced as a Swim With Mike scholarship winner in February during an event where video highlights of incoming football players were shown to Trojans fans. He would join the program as a walk-on.

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Very cool. Here’s Jake’s story if you don’t remember it from the ESPN specials:

Growing up a die hard Trojans fan:

Now getting a chance to walk on at USC due to Coach Sark. Awesome.

And why can’t this kid be successful? I mean long snapping is all about feel right? Those guys don’t even look. You just get the motion down and repeat it over and over and over again, muscle memory. Maybe this kid has like the softest most perfect touch ever and his punters are obsessed with him and they sign him to a scholarship and becomes a long snapping star and a rock star on campus crushing all the sorority chicks and going #1 in the NFL draft to a team that desperately needs to improve their long snapping game after going 1-15 due to a record number of long snap fumbles. That’s what I’m rooting for at least.

Also if it’s going to be official, Jake needs one of these on his arm and I mean he needs one on there yesterday.