Ben Olsen is the pride of Pennsylvania. He left to play for the University of Virginia and then D.C. United but returned in April to help the United States qualify for the 2000 Olympics. After an MLS season marred by injuries, Olsen has rediscovered his form at English club Nottingham Forest.
Olsen provides local inspiration
A hotel in the city center of Nottingham is the current home for this feisty, frantic midfielder who grew up in Pennsylvania mesmerized by soccer.
A lot of his friends loved the game, too, played it night and day when they were young, but not many of them took soccer as far as did Ben Olsen.
He won starred at the University of Virginia and in MLS, which named him its Rookie of the Year in 1998. He’s worn the U.S. jersey at the Olympic Games and for the senior national team.
Last April, the game brought him back home. The CONCACAF Olympic qualifiers were staged in a stadium inhabited by ghosts of his high school days.
“I had always lost on that field,” he said of Hersheypark. “They have the best program in the area. We never even made playoffs.”
The U.S. did lose in the qualifying final, yet by getting that far, it reached the Olympic Games. Those are high enough stakes for most players. Olsen had another, more personal, burden to carry.
He grew up in Middletown, located just down the Susquehanna River from Harrisburg, where he was born. Hershey, far more renowned for chocolate than chest traps, is a 15-minute drive from Middletown.
“It was something special to play there, not only for my friends and family, but for the area,” he said. “It was important to see that quality of soccer and for the kids around there to see there is more to sports than going to the NFL and the NBA, that there’s soccer out there.
“The kids in that area are talented and they play up until high school or junior year, and then they just fade off. They don’t think the opportunity is there.”
ENGULFED IN SOCCER. Olsen is living proof of that opportunity. How else could he have come to England to play pro soccer?
“You’re engulfed in the soccer world here, even in the First Division,” said Olsen. “Everyone talks about what a soccer culture and what a soccer nation it is, but until you see the players and the history of it all, people underestimate it. It’s wild.”
At Forest, Olsen is cleansing his psyche of a bitter season with United, a season marred by injury. He played only 13 games, scored one goal and had four assists. D.C. failed to make the playoffs for the first time.
“My injury put me out for most of the year,” he said of a persistent ankle problem. “The times I was playing I was pretty much one-legged.
“The Olympics was a memorable experience. To come here and top 2000 off with a good experience was crucial to my well-being and self-worth. I didn’t feel like I did that much [in MLS] this year.”
Living in a hotel – on the club’s tab, of course – gives him the freedom to skimp on all the dreary aspects of being on your own.
“I love hotel living,” he says on the telephone. “Clean sheets and they clean up after me.”
PRAISE FROM PLATT. His idyllic, scrub-free bliss ends Dec. 31 when his loan deal expires. As of Dec. 12, Olsen had played nine games with Forest and scored two goals. Forest had won seven of those nine to climb into the playoff promotion slots.
His slashing runs and furious work rate have tickled the fans and won praise from former international David Platt, the Forest manager.
“It’s something I’m very glad to be a part of, even for three months, because for the rest of my life I’ll know what it’s about,” says Olsen.
And maybe there’s a youngster in Middletown or Harrisburg or Hershey who is paying attention.
by Soccer America senior editor Ridge Mahoney