Content provided in partnership with

A dance without his partner

Sporting News, The, April 9, 2001 by Dave Kindred

It was 1951, the North Dakota plains, high school days, when Bobbi Russell first saw the new boy in town. He'd moved from Maryville to Grand Forks, coming off the farm. His father had died, leaving the boys to do the farming, leaving his wife to hold the family together. She'd worked as a waitress with Lute tagging along, 5 years old. He'd fill the soda machine, stock the napkin dispenser. For that, he'd get breakfast.

It was small-town America, Norman Rockwell's America, and Lute Olson loved it. You knew everyone in town, everyone knew you. You played basketball, baseball, football. You ran track. You sang in the church choir, afraid to catch the eye of that cute little girl Bobbi Russell, and afraid not to.

Most Popular Articles in Sports: The first family: Archie, Peyton and Eli are incredibly famous, immensely ...; The growing gap: driving distances are skyrocketing on the PGA Tour. So why ...; Which pistol caliber for self defense? Four different people come to four ...; Drag racing - National Hot Rod Association; The world's most popular .22: the Marlin Model 60 just keeps on ticking; More »

Either way, she wouldn't let on that it mattered. At a dance, she first saw the new boy in town. A friend said to Bobbi, "Look at that boy over there. He just moved in from out of town. Isn't he handsome?" Bobbi said, "I don't think he's cute at all."

Small lies we tell ourselves, cushions against failure. But math is mighty and shall prevail, as it did quickly enough for Bobbi Russell and Lute Olson, sweethearts then, sweethearts forever. He went off to Augsburg College in Minneapolis but came back to marry Bobbi after her graduation in 1953.

Now we see Lute Olson, elegant. We see him tall, trim, handsome, usually in a navy double-breasted blazer with brass buttons, the silver hair shining, a man with a senatorial look, if not presidential. Critics call him a peacock, friends call him Cary Grant.

We didn't see him in 1953. We didn't see him working nights at a Minneapolis bottling plant. He worked. A roofer. A painter. A truck driver. He worked because he came from work. His father built the farm. An older brother died there, a tractor turning over. He worked alongside his mother, and he saw the folks of Grand Forks work, and he once said, "You learn a great work ethic from those people.... When you come out of that environment, you understand people pretty well, what they're going through."

Now we see Lute Olson, 66 years old, an icon of his profession, a college basketball coach who created five Final Four teams and a national champion. We see a Hall of Fame coach.

We didn't see him coaching high school basketball for 12 years. Three years at Minnesota whistle stops, once coaching three sports for $60 a week, Bobbi bouncing around with him. When he wondered what kind of life this was for a family, he tried administration--for one year. He learned he didn't just want to coach, he needed to coach. Bobbi said, "It's you."

She knew her man. They packed up for California, seven years of high school coaching, four years at small colleges and then, beginning at age 39, the University of Iowa for nine years before acceding to their children's wishes and heading west again--to Arizona.

Bobbi Olson raised five children, a work of art in itself, and she became the model of the modern coach's wife, his partner in all things. She was the light in Lute's life, bright and bubbly to his shy and stem. She was a mother-away-from-home to players, who dropped in for spaghetti or pancakes, depending. Arizona guard Jason Gardner told reporters, "It was a joy for everyone to go to her house."

To her house. Forward Justin Wessel said, "She was one of us. She was everywhere. She was at every dinner, on every airplane. No matter how bad we might have played, she would be on that first seat on the bus with a smile." At the start of Arizona home games, the school band shouted, "Hi, Lute," and "Hi, Bobbi."

When Arizona won the 1997 national championship, Bobbi came onto the court and Lute picked her up, and they danced, and they kissed, and it was very good, this happy life they'd made since that first dance so long ago.

The next summer, on vacation with Lute in Hungary, Bobbi Olson underwent emergency surgery. She was found to have ovarian cancer. Through the '98-'99 season, she continued to attend games; at one point, Lute announced the cancer was in remission.

It returned. Bobbi Olson died on New Year's Day this year. Seventeen days later, at the coach's request, Arizona's home court was renamed, no longer "Lute Olson Court" but "Lute & Bobbi Olson Court." At each home game, roses were left on her seat. "There's an emptiness," the coach told Richard Obert of the Arizona Republic. "I think if there's anything that couples or families can learn is that every day is precious. And you need to live every day like it's your last."

And he came to one more dance, another national championship game, this against Duke, and this time he came as alone as a man can be with his five children and six of his 14 grandchildren in a crowd of 45,944. He came without Bobbi. People wore pins, "FOUR BOBBI," for it was her fourth trip with Arizona to the Final Four, and it was for her.

"She's here," insisted Matt Olson, a grandson, a junior-college basketball player. "Her spirit is here."

A dance without his partner

Sporting News, The, April 9, 2001 by Dave Kindred

Find Research Guides for:

Find Featured Titles for: Sports

Most Popular Articles in Sports

Most Popular Publications in Sports