Jake Olson is congratulated by teammate Wyatt Schmidt, #46, for his vital participation in the game deciding play.
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Certain things are bigger than the game, any game. Although it’s hard to conceive of any other sports, beyond bowling, perhaps, where a legitimate player could have achieved what Jake Olson did last week as a long-snap center for the USC Trojans on a late-in-the-game victory-important NCAA Division 1 football extra point conversion against the Western Michigan Broncos.
In case you haven’t heard, Jake Olson is a totally blind football player for the USC Trojans. Thanks to this young man of great heart and ability – and with special thanks to USC Head Coach Clay Helton and Western Michigan Head Coach Tim Lester, Jake got to participate in one of the deciding plays in the game – with no violation of the rules of football – and in respect for a value in life that certain things in life, truly are, bigger than the game itself.
In a world dominated by news of killer storms, insane dictators with bad haircuts, and the never-ending rancor from all the lovely people we’ve elected to lifetime perks in Washington, this link to the September 2, 2017 article by Bill Plaschke for the Los Angeles Times is worth your investment of attention and energy – to all of those rarer folks who sometimes rise to higher callings than the dangerous appetites of nature and the call of the human ego to personal glorification:
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-usc-plaschke-20170902-story.html
Thank you, Rob Sangster, for alerting The Pecan Park Eagle to this beautiful story.
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Bill McCurdy
Principal Writer, Editor, Publisher
The Pecan Park Eagle
The Pecan Park Eagle 
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