Girls’ Varsity assistant soccer coach Calli Olson won the Section 5AA ‘Assistant Coach of the Year’ award.

This is an impressive accomplishment that only adds to the monumental season the BSM girls soccer team has been having.  Olson has been coaching for eleven years, and played as a goalie at Saint Olaf College. She loves many aspects of coaching but especially enjoys coaching at the high school level because she doubles as a high school English teacher at BSM. Olson gets to see her players in a school environment as well as in an athletic environment. “I like coaching high school because I get to see kids in both capacities: in school and on the field. And I like being around the sport that I’ve dedicated my life to,” Olson said.

Players on the team describe Olson as player-centric way. She will help you understand and improve from your errors. “She’s very personable and helps talk you through your mistakes,” sophomore goalie Olivia Olson said.

Olson exemplifies all the qualities of a good leader, and her extensive soccer knowledge makes her a qualified coach. “She’s very vocal, speaks her opinion, and she knows about soccer. She has creative drills that she comes up with to help the goalies; she helps the field players too,” Olivia Olson said.

Olson is honored to have won this award. She was nominated by the head coach, Scott Christi. “My head coach put me up for it. So, it showed the amount of trust that he has in me and it helps validate all of the work that I put into the season,” Olson said.

What makes the award so special is the amount of work that the team as a whole has put into over the past couple years. Olson coached many of the current varsity players when they were on junior varsity. “Seeing everything they’ve been working for for four years fall into place is amazing. Because this has been a long road for a lot of kids on that team. They’ve worked so hard and they’ve deserved everything that they’ve earned so far. And hopefully, we can totally bring it home,” Olson said.