As a young man Roger Olsen witnessed the most significant
historical acts of the 20th century. He lived through the Depression and served with distinction in the
Pacific theater during the Second World War.
Reflecting on his life and varied past, Mr. Olsen did not
hesitate to recall the period that profoundly shaped his life. It prepared him
mentally, emotionally and intellectually for the demands placed on him as a
young man.
His retains proud, spirited memories of his four years at
Leo Catholic High. Mr. Olsen is a
distinguished graduate of the class of 1939.
In ways both anecdotal and important, Mr. Olsen’s life
embodies not only the spirit and tradition of the school. His experiences and colorful perspective
provide an important early view of the school’s foundation, the importance of
its curriculum and still vivid memories of his experiences playing football.
Parallel lives
Born in 1921 Mr. Olsen was only five-years old when the
Christian Brothers of
Ireland
established their first
Chicago
school, Leo High
at
South
Sangamon
on
East 79th Street
. The oldest of four children and the only boy,
Roger grew up in the Roseland area of 101st and Forrest. His father did not attend high school. “My
father was a street-car conductor [who] worked hard all of his life,”
Mr. Olsen says.
He learned from
the father the meaning of hard work and effort. His mother also lacked a deep formal education. She was
strong-willed and determined that her children receive a strong Catholic
education. His mother knew school was
the best and most effective means for success and the route to escape the
severe economic restrictions of the time. Mr. Olsen was young and wide-eyed, but he knew instinctively that people
were struggling greatly for the most basic of goods and services.
“We were fortunate that [my father] worked through the
Depression. I realized what the
Depression was because a lot of times we had relatives staying with us for a
couple of weeks, family members who were in between jobs or just looking for
work.”
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“Tuition at Leo was $11 a month,” Mr. Olsen recalls,
laughing, a good bit of money back then. His scholarship also provided for books and some traveling
expenses.
He made the round trip by
riding the
State Street
car to 79th before transferring to a second car that traveled west
toward
Sangamon
. The moment he arrived at Leo, he realized how
sheltered his life had been. “I remember
my first day there; I met a fellow named Tom Burke. He was the biggest fellow I’d ever seen. I couldn’t believe how big he was.”
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By contrast Mr. Olsen was tall and thin as wire. He was just over five-feet, ten-inches. He entered Leo weighing just 135 pounds.
His two closest childhood friends wound up at different
schools. From the start, Mr. Olsen felt
accepted at Leo. In his new environment,
he quickly found his stride and felt immediately apart of a school, a community
and a group order that privileged learning, discipline and structure. The Brothers’ primary mission was education,
and the school’s rigorous academic mandated math, science, Latin, English and
social sciences.
The school also promoted athletics, with its team concepts
and its emphasis on the intrinsic values of dedication, sportsmanship,
competition and physical development. The balance of academics and athletics proved a blessing, and it helped
him find his voice and be a part of something.
“I was very self-motivated. I wanted to play football.”
From the time of its founding, Leo competed in the Chicago
Catholic League. In 1934, the year
before Mr. Olsen entered the school, Leo qualified for its inaugural Prep
Bowl. That appearance would presage the
start of a remarkable run by the school. Leo qualified for the Prep Bowl an astounding eight times from 1934 to
1956.
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Mr. Olsen always loved football. In grammar school, he’d play with his best
friends in sandlots and at parks. They
were so enthusiastic they played in overalls without helmets or pads. He was so skinny he did not try out for the
team as a freshman. In his sophomore
year, he played in the younger, lightweight division. Little did he know, by his junior year he’d
be part of history.
Origins
Football was a much different game then. The nature and
style of play was fairly rudimentary and straightforward. The National Football League was in its early
stages. College football was the
national rage. That was the story locally,
as well. The
University
of
Chicago
,
with star running back Jay Berwanger, was a big-time program. In 1935, Berwanger won the first ever Heisman
Trophy and he was the first player ever drafted in the NFL. As a schoolboy about to enter Leo, Mr. Olsen
used to listen raptly to radio broadcasts of Berwanger’s accomplishments.
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Entering the second decade of its existence, Leo had an avid
following. The home games typically
attracted up to eight thousand fans. The
formation of the Catholic League produced strong rivalries that intensified the
drama. “Our biggest rival was
Mount Carmel
. I’m
not sure what to attribute that to, but I guess it was just two schools that
had a lot of decent athletes,” Mr. Olsen says.
By his junior year, Mr. Olsen was one of 54 Lions that made
up the varsity squad. The coach, Whitey
Cronin, was a formidable figure. “He was
a dandy, a tough but a very fair coach,” he says. Motivation was almost completely
unnecessary. The young men at Leo were
determined to achieve success. Coach
Cronin was the avenue to that path.
Back then the rules of the game favored running. “In those days if you had two incomplete
passes [on consecutive plays], you’d get a five-yard penalty.
“Our primary formation was called the Short Punt,” Mr. Olsen
says. “We were always in a punt
formation, but the tailback was closer to the line of scrimmage.” Punting was a strategic ploy where teams
punted in order to achieve strategic power and improve field position.
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The 1937 season began somewhat inauspiciously with a 7-6
practice loss to Loyola. The team
quickly regrouped and asserted its dominance. The Lions hammered
Columbia
30-6 and
ousted rival
Mount Carmel
14-6. After whipping St. Phillips and St. Ignatius
in consecutive games, the Lions revealed their mettle against St. Rita.
Leo fought off two big deficits, down 14-7 at the half and
20-7 after three periods. Leo scored two
touchdowns in the fourth quarter for the riveting 21-20 victory. Leo beat De La Salle 22-6 in front of a home
crowd of more than 13,000. They ended
the regular season by defeating a strong Joliet Catholic team in the mud and
rain 12-6.
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In the Catholic League playoffs, Leo easily dispatched St.
George and qualified for the Prep Bowl. Playing Public League power
Austin
,
the game entered history when the largest crowd to ever watch a football game,
estimated at 113,000, poured into Soldier Field.
Austin
stole some thunder of the Lions’ remarkable season by winning the game. Even so, Leo’s place in
Chicago
high school football history was
secure. The team finished 8-2. Mr. Olsen was a reserve, but he got into
every game. There was not as much
substitution because of a rule that prevented a substituted player from
re-entering a game in that quarter.
In his senior year of 1938, Mr. Olsen played more
regularly. That team was not quite at
the level of his junior year. They
finished with a 6-3-1 mark.
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After Leo
Following his graduation in 1939, Mr. Olsen studied
mechanical engineering at the Illinois Institute of Technology. During his first year the school was called
Armour. He entered there on a work and
academic co-opt. He worked eight weeks
at a time and studied the next two months.
In 1944, he earned a Navy commission. Following his basic training in
New York
, Mr. Olsen was
a landing track officer on an attack transport (APA) for assault operations in
the Pacific. Three weeks before he
entered the Navy, he married Genevieve McCormick. “I’d been courting her for about five years,”
he says. “Our first date was the senior
prom.
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”Honorably discharged from the Navy in 1946, Mr. Olsen worked
as a mechanical engineer at a
Chicago
architectural company. He also worked in
sales. His primary corporate experience
was at Peoples Gas, where he worked for nearly 30 years. He and his wife had five children. Mr. Olsen has 11 grandchildren and six
great-grandchildren.
After living in
South Holland
for nearly five decades, Mr. Olsen returned to city. He lives in a condominium
in the
South Loop
. “My wife and I always talked about moving
back to the city. We were city
kids. That’s the only thing I regret
about her not being here,” he says. His
primary hobby now is golf, which he plays regularly.
The Leo emphasis on discipline, character and tolerance was
the defining experience of his varied and purposeful life. Being part of Leo
indelibly stamped Mr. Olsen for the rest of his life.
“Thinking about it, I
had great memories playing football. I really enjoyed my time at Leo,
especially the learning and the association with the Brothers. My time at Leo definitely helped me in
college. I learned how to study, which was obviously very important.
He paused. There was
not much more to add. “I had great fun
at Leo,” he says.
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