Coach Jeff Olson

A FATHER’S MISSION

Jeff Olson, father of Daniel Olson and Ishpeming High School’s head football coach, is working to reduce the stigma surrounding mental illness. Jeff has taught in the public school system for 30 years and has coached Football and other sports for 37 years. For 27 years he was the Head Football Coach at Ishpeming High School in Michigan where they won 3 State Championships and had 2 Runner-up finishes. He was elected into the Michigan High School Football Coaches Association Hall of Fame in 2016 with a record of 200-91. Jeff has also been Ishpeming’s Head Basketball Coach and has helped coach track for many years. Jeff, his wife Sally, and four children, have endured the pain of a loved one battling severe depression and anxiety ultimately leading to the suicide of their son Daniel at the age of 19. Jeff has spent the past 2 years traveling to different schools and communities around the Midwest speaking on anxiety, depression, and suicide and presenting the Do It For Daniel documentary about his son’s and family’s struggles with this medical illness.

“When people say ‘mental illness,’ that’s when they freak out because of all the stigmas attached…so we want people to understand this is very common; it’s a medical illness like any other medical illness. It just happens to be a medical illness of the brain, so it affects how you feel, how you think. And that’s a scary thing for people because there’s nothing outwardly showing that you are suffering or that you are ill, and that’s why people don’t talk about it and why people don’t get help. So we’re trying to create that dialogue and get people to understand that it is medical.”

-Jeff Olson, Daniel Olson’s father