ROCK ISLAND, Ill. – A slogan on a t-shirt turns into reality today with the announcement that legendary Augustana men's cross country/track & field head coach Paul Olsen will be retiring at the end of the 2017-18 school year. Olsen, who has probably shared as many slogans as championships with his teams down through the years, and he's had plenty of both, came up with a shirt a few years back that says "The journey is the goal".
 
That journey, which began at Augustana 51 years ago, is going to end after the NCAA Division III National Outdoor Track & Field Championships in late May of 2018.  However, Olsen is not just a fixture in the coaching circles but he is one of the senior-most faculty members on campus as a full professor in the Augustana English department. His classes in African American/Black Literature and the Sacred and Profane are consistently filled. He is so well-regarded in the classroom that he has been picked by 15 different senior classes to give the "Last Lecture" in the week before graduation.
 
As should be expected from someone who enjoyed incredible success in two vastly different disciplines, Olsen was reflective on his "journey".
 
"I have been blessed by working in what many perceive to be two very different realms of life, the academic and the athletic," said Olsen, who began his career at Augustana as the head cross country coach in 1966. "I see it all as one. No athlete competes or trains in a vacuum. Life is complex. Sport, competition, is complex and every race or throw or jump is a consequence of how one handles that complexity. Literature and language enrich our experiences and they help to navigate us through all the complexities of our journeys."
 
That journey for Olsen at Augustana started in the fall 1966 when he led his cross country team to a 7-5 dual meet record and a third place finish in the College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin championship. The recently concluded cross country season, which saw his squad finish 11^th at the NCAA Midwest Regional was his 52^nd as the head coach in that sport.
 
The upcoming track & field season will be his 50^th, and final, campaign at the helm of the Vikings. In simple terms, when he retires he will have been the head coach at Augustana for over 100 seasons, 52 in cross country and 50 in track & field.
 
"I really do believe in our philosophy that the goal is the journey. And, what a journey it's been in every respect: teaching literature and coaching every part of cross country/track & field over the years," said Olsen. "Through it all we have used another philosophical axiom as we 'celebrate life'. We celebrate all the time – for what our teams have achieved AND, more, for what we get to do with people we love being around."
 
There certainly has been plenty to celebrate for Olsen during his career.  The numbers jump off the page. In the 101  seasons that he has coached so far, his teams have competed in a grand total of 118 College Conference of Illinois & Wisconsin championship meets; 52 in cross country, 49 in outdoor track & field and 17 in indoor track & field. The Vikings have won two conference titles in cross country, 14 in outdoor track & field and one in indoor track & field.
 
The number that should jump off the page, however, and serve as testimony to the success and consistency of Augustana during the Paul Olsen-era is this one -  of the 118 CCIW meets that the Vikings have competed in, they have finished first or second in 94 of them. And, they have never been lower than fourth place in any CCIW competition under Olsen's direction.
 
When it comes to national competition, Olsen's teams don't have to take a back seat to anyone. In cross country the Vikings have qualified for the NCAA Division III National Championships 25 times and have been in the top 10 a total of 11 times, including a second place finish in 1980 and a fourth in 1979 and two fifths (1974 & 1992). Augustana runners have earned 25 NCAA Division III All-American certificates and won three individual national titles under Olsen's tutelage.
 
In track & field the Vikings have been in the top 10 a total of 15 times outdoors and four times indoors. Twice (1975 & 1981) his teams have finished second in the national outdoor meet.  He has coached 22 individual national champions and one relay national titlist. A total 240 All-American certificates have been won by Augustana athletes.
 
As is fitting for someone who made as big an impact on the academic side of Augustana as he did in athletics, Olsen's athletes excelled in both the classroom as well as on the field of competition. Of the 38 Vikings who have earned NCAA Postgraduate Scholarships down through the years, 14 have been members of the track & field/cross country teams. Augustana ranks first in the number of CoSIDA (College Sports Information Directors of America) Academic All-Americans in track & field/cross country with 44.
 
"We have a t-shirt that says on the back 'Inspiration is Contagious' and we all see it every day from athletes on every level of ability," commented Olsen. "With inspiration, deep relationships, and celebrations, times, distances and heights will just take care of themselves."
 
Mike Zapolski, the director of athletics at Augustana, had this to say about Olsen. "Words on a press release cannot come close to accurately describing the value that Paul Olsen has brought to Augustana in the last 50-plus years," said Zapolski, who has led the department since 2008. "Paul's boundless enthusiasm, high energy, ability to connect with people and impressive accomplishments as a coach and teacher are a legacy that will forever be etched into the annals of our history. "
 
Zapolski knows, as does any person who had the good fortune to be coached by the man who everyone refers to as simply "Ols", that the success was never about points, places or trophies. "It has been a journey well-traveled by a faith-filled man who has touched the lives of countless numbers of people along the way."
 
An eclectic man who has many causes and passions, his e-mail signature speaks volumes about the way Ols lives his life, both as a coach/teacher/leader and away from Augustana. It is a passage from The Talmud and it goes like this:
Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief.
Do justly now.
Love mercy now.
Walk humbly now.
You are not obligated to complete the work.
But neither are you free to abandon it.
 
He was inducted into the Illinois Track & Field Coaches Association "Hall of Fame" in January of 2004 and went into the Augustana "Tribe of Vikings Hall of Fame" in October of 2005. Olsen was also a member of the USTFCCCA Hall of Fame class of 2013 and was inducted into the Quad City Times Hall of Fame in 2013. He is also a member of the Luther College Hall of Fame. He was the USTFCCCA "National Coach of the Year" in 2008 and was twice named the "Regional Coach of the Year" by the same organization. 

A native of Onamia, Minnesota, Olsen came to Augustana after a teaching and coaching stint at Lincoln High School in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. During his first couple of years at Augustana he served as an assistant in both football and basketball before assuming full time duties in track and cross country.

Olsen is a man of many talents and interests. As a professor in the English Department at Augustana, Olsen ranks as one of the most popular teachers in the entire school with his classes in Black Literature and the Sacred and Profane consistently filled to capacity. In 1989 Olsen was one of just 120 teachers nationwide who were honored at the American Association for Higher Education convention in Chicago. He was the only Augustana faculty member named to the elite group. He has been selected by the seniors at Augustana to give the final lecture 15 times during his career. At one time he used to perform a one-person play entitled "Pilgrimage with Poets" that was highly acclaimed.

Olsen is a graduate of Luther College in Decorah, Iowa, where he was captain of the track team and a starter for the football team as a defensive back. He holds an M.A. and Ph.D.  (with honors) in English Literature from the University of Oregon. He resides in Bettendorf, Iowa with his wife Jeanne, and the couple has two sons, David, a former United States Navy S.E.A.L. who currently owns a business (Olsen Doors) in Los Angeles and works as a stunt man in Hollywood, and Eric, who is an actor and a graduate of Pepperdine University. He is currently starring as lead detective Marty Deeks in CBS's "NCIS-Los Angeles".