Adam Amato Emerald
Igor Olshansky has developed into a leader on the Oregon defense, which is looking to improve in the Seattle Bowl.
Big-name star
When the crowd chants Igor
Olshansky’s name, the lineman
responds with hard-nosed play
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
Igor Olshansky is one of the few
Oregon athletes to know the feeling
of having his name chanted by a
crowd of 50,000 people.
Every time he makes a big play —
which has been more and more of
ten as his career has unfolded — the
crowd at Autzen Stadium lets him
know about it.
“Eeeeee-gor.”
But the “Pain from Ukraine” hard
ly takes it to his head.
“I think sometimes it’s unde
served,” Olshansky said. “I don’t
know if I really make a great play,
or if it’s because the crowd likes
saying ‘Igor.’”
Olshansky’s name is not the only
unique thing about him. For one, the
redshirt sophomore defensive line
man came over to the United States
from the Ukraine when he was eight.
For another, he’s only been playing
football for five years.
And that ability to learn — he
picked up football only slightly faster
than he picked up English — has led
him to the top of a young defensive
line that is getting better almost by
the quarter.
Haloti Ngata, the top-tier fresh
man lineman who is also rapidly im
proving, described Olshansky as a
leader, despite the fact that he’s only
a sophomore.
“He’ll watch film with me, tell me
what I need to do, What to focus on,”
Ngata said. “He’ll look at me instead
of himself, tell me what’s good for me
and what I need to work on. So he’s
been a real big help to me.”
Olshansky and the defensive line
have done a good job of stopping
the run this season — Oregon is
ranked 15th in the nation in rush
ing defense — but he is the first to
shoulder the blame for a pass rush
that has hardly stopped many
shoulders or throwing arms in the
second half of the season.
“I think I can really improve on
my pass rush, and you can always
become a smarter player,” Olshan
sky said. “You can never be too
smart on a football field.”
But if Olshansky was smarter, he
would look at a statistics sheet and
see he isn’t nearly responsible for
any floundering the Ducks did dur
ing the regular season. He has 60
tackles on the year to go along with
three sacks and eight tackles
for loss.
“It’s kind of hard because the
team’s not doing well; that’s what re
ally matters,” Olshansky said. “As
far as my personal success, I don’t
think it matters.”
As the Ducks head to the Seattle
Bowl on Dec. 30, they’ll be looking to
Olshansky to step up as he has in big
games in the past.
He did, after all, step up on the
biggest of stages last year.
After a season in which he started
only two games, Olshansky was
forced to start in the Fiesta Bowl
against Colorado’s fearsome rushing
game. He responded to the pressure
by notching three tackles and was
one of the main reasons the Ducks
were able to hold the Buffaloes to 49
yards on the ground. For his efforts,
he was named to Sports Illustrated’s
All-Bowl team.
This season, Olshansky has gradu
ally improved even more. He topped
off the year with 16 tackles in the
past two games against Washington
and Oregon State.
“He’s matured a lot,” junior line
backer Kevin Mitchell said. “He’s
matured in the way that he’s not just
Turn to Olshansky, page 8B
r learning Seattle Bowl tries to establish respect
The former Oahu Bowl game
is trying to become a main
event in the Northwest as it
establishes a “bowl week1
Peter Hockaday
Sports Editor
The Seattle Bowl isn’t exactly
a Northwest tradition, but it’s get
ting there.
If fans haven’t ever heard of the
bowl, it’s because 2002 is only its
second year in the Northwest. The
bowl was formerly called the Oahu
Bowl, but even that bowl was only
around for three years before mov
ing to Seattle.
So now, the directors of the
bowl are trying to establish it as a
viable alternative to bowls in
warmer climates, mostly by play
ing up Seattle’s diversity. The
scheduled “bowl week” offers
events from a Washington basket
ball game to fish-throwing at Pike
Place Market.
“Our goal is to take care of the
student-athlete, the alumni and
the fans to make sure they come
away with an unbelievable bowl
week experience,” said Jim Haugh,
president of Aloha Sports, Inc.,
which runs the Seattle Bowl.
Last year, Georgia Tech and
Stanford battled in the first Seattle
Bowl at Safeco Field, the home of
major league baseball’s Seattle
Mariners. But in the offseason,
Aloha Sports signed a contract
with Seahawks Stadium to play
the bowl there for the next five
years, starting this season.
Oregon head coach Mike Bellotti
and Wake Forest head coach Jim
Grobe agreed that Seattle is an op
timal place to play a bowl game.
But the coaches are also eyeing
the stadium as an optimal venue.
The players will stay at a hotel
near Seahawks Stadium, and
many of the bowl week events will
take place close to the area.
“I talked with (former Stanford
head coach) Tyrone Willingham
about his trip there last year, and
he was very positive about the way
the people took care of the players
and the great time they had at the
Seattle Bowl,” Bellotti said.
“Seattle is one of my favorite
towns,” said Grobe, who said that
Georgia Tech’s coaches were also
positive about last year’s bowl.
The bowl week kicks off with
“NFL Day” on Dec. 22, when the
Seahawks will take on the St.
Louis Rams at the stadium. Dec.
23 is “Husky Basketball Day,” and
will feature Washington taking
on Houston.
The Ducks will arrive on Dec.
26, “NBA Day,” with a game be
tween the Seattle Super Sonics
and Toronto Raptors.
After the teams arrive, the week
turns event-oriented, as the teams
will tour the Experience Music
Project museum, toss fish at Pike
Place Market and have a banquet
at the Museum of Flight.
“The question is, where else can
you go in North America to see the
NFL, the NBA, college basketball,
hockey and a college bowl game in
the same week?” Haugh said.
The answer, of course, is
nowhere. Only Seattle.
Contact the sports editor
atpeterhockaday@dailyemerald.com.
Courtesy The Seattle Bowl
Teyo Johnson and the Stanford Cardinal lost to Georgia Tech last year in the inaugural Seattle Bowl, played at Safeco Field.