There’s plenty to examine around D.C. United’s naming of Ben Olsen as the team’s full-time head coach earlier today. First, a couple key newsy bits to keep in mind, then a couple good quotes about the public declaration of Olsen not being a candidate that apparently was for show, and then my piece which will appear in Cheers & Jeers tomorrow.
– DCU president Kevin Payne said Olsen’s contract is for three years with options after that.
– Olsen is building his coaching staff, a task he’s focusing on this week and next. It will include former assistant-turned-technical director-turned-assistant-again Chad Ashton, but not goalkeepers coach Mark Simpson, who’s leaving the club, and likely not assistant Kris Kelderman, who remains under contract with D.C. but appears set to be re-assigned within the club.
Payne was asked if he regretted his comments that Olsen wasn’t a candidate: “No, I don’t regret having said it at all. I think it would’ve been a mistake to have had that speculation out there through the whole remaining portion of the season, that Ben had to take over a very difficult role. Ben had never been a head coach, none of knew how he was going to do. The intention was to protect the club, protect Ben for the future and forestall any controversy. It wasn’t a cynical move in the sense that I did it knowing that we were going to hire Ben, and there’s no other agenda here. I’m telling you exactly what happened. When I said it, I meant it. however, I did tell Ben that we would keep an open mind.”
Olsen said Payne’s public stance didn’t bother him at all: “I’m not just saying that. Kevin and I had a talk. I remember he said, look, it’s easier for me, at the end of the day, to name you head coach, but right now it’s not the thing to say. We had conversations throughout. Again, I wasn’t expecting it, but it means nothing to me. I feel like I have all the confidence from Kevin, from[general manager] Dave [Kasper], and from [owner] Will [Chang]. I’ve known them for a very long time. They don’t pull punches with me. They speak freely, and I feel again that I have the backing of them and they truly believe I’m the right guy for the job.”
The Cheers & Jeers piece:
Ben Olsen’s first move as D.C. United’s permanent head coach, no longer just the interim, was to acquire a player remarkably similar to himself.
But the arrival of central midfielder Dax McCarty, who the team picked up in a trade with expansion Portland last week, wasn’t just notable for Olsen remaking the team, intentionally or not, in his own image.
Olsen simply dove into his new role the same way he approached playing for more than a decade: with confidence, savvy and determination – the kind of qualities D.C. United needs as desperately off the field as it does on it to bounce back from the worst season in the franchise’s 15-year existence.
At 33 years old, Olsen is the youngest head coach in MLS history, and he’s also taken on what has become one of most difficult jobs in league, thanks to an underwhelming recent history, a far from ideal stadium situation in a league where fancy new digs are opening every season, and a club where the front office’s day-to-day influence on the team has always been significant, for better or worse.
“We have to make fewer mistakes, I guess,” said D.C. United president and CEO Kevin Payne when asked about the lessons he could learn from the half-season tenure of Curt Onalfo before he was dismissed in August. “We, all of us, we’re all in this together. We have successes together, we fail together. Nobody should think that we blame everything on Curt, or that if we’re successful now, it will all accrue to Benny.”
But despite his inexperience and a hiring process in which he wasn’t the top choice – even if Payne said declarations that Olsen wasn’t a candidate was merely “to protect the club, protect Ben for the future and forestall any controversy,” – it hasn’t taken long for Olsen to show that he enjoys the pressure of holding the reins by himself.
At Monday’s news conference to announce his hiring, Olsen jokingly apologized to his wife for the mood swings and other unintended consequences of becoming a head coach. But his demeanor changed when there were any suggestions that D.C. United was anything more now than his team alone.
“I’ve known Kevin for a long time,” said Olsen. “I’ve known [general manager] Dave [Kasper] for a long time. Our relationship is one – I work for them. I work for [owner] Will Chang. But it’s my job on the line now. I will make decisions as far as players and how this team goes forward. That’s the job of the head coach. It’s something that I’m prepared to do, and I feel confident I can do.”
