The Making of a Legend: Merlin Olsen
The Making of a Legend: Merlin Olsen
There’s something special about being able to say “We knew him before the world did!’
To millions of sports fans Merlin Olsen became a legend as one of the Fearsome Foursome of the Los Angeles Rams. He was in the Pro Bowl 14 years, more than anyone else, and never missed a game in his 15 years with the Rams and was inducted into the College and Pro Football Hall of Fame, and he continued his success as a popular television commentator and actor.
Long before that time, as a sophomore at Logan High, and before he had even played one game, he became a football legend to his high school teammates on the first day of practice.
As an awkward, oddly shaped teenager, with head and feet already full grown and anxiously waiting for his body to catch up, the only thing the varsity players knew about him was that he was big and strong and could possibly be a good football player someday—-and that he was only a mere sophomore.
In those days there were no little league or junior high football programs and this mighty man hadn’t played a down of real football anywhere. He was an unknown, even to himself.
At Logan High there was a tradition—-that sophomore’s didn’t go through the varsity dressing room to get to the football field. Sophomores had to bypass the varsity locker room and go out the front door and make the long loop to the gridiron. The side door of the varsity dressing room went straight to the field and would have been a significant short cut for the sophomores—–but for tradition. Sophomores had their place and it wasn’t in the varsity dressing room.
Sometime near the beginning of that 1956 season Merlin let everyone know in advance that he was not going to abide tradition. He declared that he was going through the varsity dressing room directly to the field. The gauntlet had been thrown down, albeit in a friendly, but competitive manner.
When the day approached tensions rose, and nary a varsity player left the dressing room early that day. They were laying in wait for this ‘bigger than life’ sophomore who thought the shorter distance made good sense.
As a puny little guy with big ears and the team manager I knew my place. I was a spectator. Spectating is what I was good at, and the scene that unfolded that day remains vivid to me to this day.
All the other sophomores played their assigned roles and went around the varsity dressing room, but true to his word, Merlin entered the varsity domain. Several varsity players attempted to grab him, but they couldn’t hold on to him and they went rebounding across one of the benches. It was obvious that this needed to be a team effort and so others took up the challenge and the skirmish area broadened as he twisted and turned and threw off attackers one after the other, but gradually the varsity guys worked him around benches and lockers into the shower area in an attempt to douse him, and they eventually did, but not without the varsity getting drenched as well. That was the only day the varsity took a shower before practice, and when the melee was over Merlin was still standing, wet, but begging for more. There was no more. He had earned his stripes, respect all around.
Merlin Olsen went through the varsity dressing room that entire year while all the other sophomores continued according to tradition.
To me, that was the day Merlin became a legend and all of his Logan High classmates have taken pride in Merlin as he became an American sports legend, and we’ve all been just a little bit better than we would have been without him in our lives.
Utah State University honored him the other night and announced that the football field would be named in his honor, and that a statue would be built and displayed in his memory.
He is suffering from a rare cancer that is attacking the pleura of his lungs and it is cutting his breath shorter each day. We wish him the best in his current difficult struggle.
My bet is that whenever it is that he gets called to the other side he will follow the same pattern he did in all aspects of this life, he will go through the varsity dressing room and directly to the playing field.
Merlin, your Logan High classmates commend you for your life of achievement at every level, and especially for the dignity with which you did it.
“We knew you before the world did!”
(Edited Dec. 11, 2009)
December 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Great story. I’ve heard bits and pieces about Merlin, such as calling him ‘shoes’ and breaking Mom’s diving board, but this is one I hadn’t heard. It’s always fun to hear stories about people before the world knew them. Margot has finished reading all the Little House on the Praire books so we just started watching the series from Netflix. It’s been fun to see old ‘shoes’ back on the tv.
December 9th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
I’ve read through “The Making of a legend: Merlin Olsen” and enjoyed the story. Joe is an excellent writer and the story is well-written. However, I believe Joe’s memory is tricking him. I’ve known Merlin basically all my life and I sincerely doubt that, as a sophomore and having never been previously chosen for a sports team, he would have challenged the tradition and gone through the varsity locker room. As Joe pointed out, at that time he was unknown even to himself. He has said many times that he was never comfortable with the violence in football — even as a professional. Despite his size and strength, he would never have been so disrespectful as to tread on the tradition or challenge the varsity players. The story, as I have checked with others in the Class of ’58, is that Merlin went through the varsity locker room by accident, was thrown into the shower by the varsity players (he probably was embarrassed and allowed them to do it)and that he went around the building with his sophomore classmates for the rest of that season. Nevertheless, the article was fun to read and honors Merlin, which he so much deserves.
December 11th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Well said, Joe. I heard that story in 1968, when Logan High sophomore defensive end Bob Larsen made the varsity as a sophomore.
He, too, was “initiated” by the seniors in the Team Room in his first short-cut to Crimson Field and I’m guessing Merlin’s brother, Phil, went through something similar when he was a varsity tackle in his sophomore season, 1963.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
I enjoyed reading the tribute story, Ron’s revision, Joe’s reiteration and Greg’s comment on Bob Larsen, who was a sophomore in the fall of 1967, not 1968, as in ’68 as a junior he started several games on defense for LHS. I don’t recall Bob Larsen attempting to come through the “Team Room” as a soph(as the varsity dressing facility was called in the old LHS gym), even though I played on the team, but Greg would maybe know better, since he was a reserve DB with the Grizzlies and the sports editor of the school newspaper in 1967-68. May I add my prayers and best wishes to Merlin as he fights this terrible disease, and kudos to Joe, Greg and Ron for their keen insights to a Logan Grizzly grid tradition.