Dave Boling: Northwest roots run deep with Seahawks quarterback coach Greg Olson and wife Lissa
Given the way these things work, Greg Olson likely will spend more time this fall with Seattle Seahawks quarterback Geno Smith than he will with his wife, Lissa.
Coaches like Olson live nomadic existences, their careers insecure, unpredictable, peripatetic. Twenty-three of the 32 NFL teams have turned over staffs since 2020, so roots tend to be shallow and bags stay packed.
Behind the scenes, less is known of the spouses and families, who are frequently pulling up stakes and trying to find new schools and new friends every couple of years.
Greg and Lissa Olson have dealt with a unique complicating factor, doubling the degree of uncertainty for parts of their marriage. Lissa has been a successful coach with Division I college track teams as Greg was making his way through the NFL, mostly as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
It’s meant living apart during 11 years of their 32-year marriage. Both agree that the key to making it work has been nurturing a mutual respect for the other’s career, with a single guiding principle in place for the past two decades: Doing what’s best for the kids – twins Grayce and Kenny.
When asked to examine this stage of his life, Greg, 60, said: “What’s your real legacy? Hopefully, you did a good job, as a parent and husband, raising your kids. We made it happen, with good kids. I can’t give (Lissa) enough credit, obviously. She’s a phenomenal wife and mother, and our kids ended up being really good students and athletes – well-rounded, nice kids.”
When Greg was hired in February to replace Dave Canales as quarterback coach for the Seahawks, it appeared the Olsons finally would be headed back to their home state.
Greg had quarterbacked Richland High and Central Washington University before getting on as a graduate assistant at Washington State under Dennis Erickson.
Lissa, at the time, was a Cougars high jumper from Spokane’s Lewis and Clark High. She once explained that she and Greg met “where all great couples meet … at The Coug,” she said of a Pullman pub. They had been introduced by mutual friend, WSU quarterback Timm Rosenbach.
The demands of marriage and coaching were simpler early on, such as when Greg coached at Idaho and Lissa was an assistant track coach at WSU. Since then, they’ve crossed the country, their paths often diverging because of job opportunities.
Lissa strung together coaching positions at Washington, WSU, Purdue, South Florida and California. Greg’s resume is even longer: CWU, Idaho, Purdue (twice), San Francisco 49ers, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Rams (in both St. Louis and Los Angeles), Tampa Bay, Jacksonville (twice) and the Raiders (in both Oakland and Las Vegas).
The most compelling sacrifice in the name of marital unity came in 2002, when Greg gave up a job as Niners quarterback coach under Steve Mariucci to go back to Purdue, where Lissa had been named head coach of both the men’s and women’s track programs – thought to be the first female in the country to head combined squads.
“I just had a lot of respect for the work she had done; she did some incredible things as a coach, I didn’t want to not let her pursue her dreams,” Greg said. “We didn’t have children at that time and she was on that career path.”
The birth of their twins in 2004 changed matters, Lissa staying home for four years.
“It was probably the hardest time in my life,” Lissa said. “My career was what I knew, it was my identity. I moved to Michigan, when Greg went with the Lions, and I didn’t know anyone, at home alone with two infants, with no career and no friends.”
Several jobs and moves later, they found stability in 2013 upon moving to the East Bay, California, area. When the twins got into high school, Lissa withdrew from full-time coaching to be attentive to their sports. Since then, Lissa and the kids have stayed in Pleasanton while Greg followed jobs in Florida, Las Vegas, L.A. and now Seattle.
“There’s a lot of NFL families that pick up and move every time, and there’s no right or wrong,” Lissa said. “In our case, our kids were able to have a sound foundation and make life-long friends, and didn’t have to make big changes academically or athletically. Their senior years were dreams come true, both winning athletic awards, being team captains, winning their league championships. It was perfect.”
Last year, the 6-foot-4 Grayce made the All Pac-12 freshman volleyball team at UCLA, and Kenny was a redshirt freshman linebacker at Cal Poly SLO (coached by former WSU player and coach Paul Wulff).
Lissa has put her WSU degrees to work teaching health and kinesiology classes at Las Positas College.
“It was a great way to work only when my kids were in school,” she said. “I could take them to all their practices and games. That time was really priceless. There were so many special moments.”
Before breaking out Peaches and Herb’s “Reunited,” the move back to Washington doesn’t mean the Olsons will be living full time in the same area code.
“She’ll be spending a lot of time here, but our plan is to retire in northern California,” Greg said. “We bought a condo in Seattle, but we don’t plan on selling our house down there.”
“We’ve really established a great home base in Pleasanton, and it’s been the kids’ home for the last 10 years,” Lissa said.
The California home base is also much closer to the twins’ college competitions.
Greg said he has laughed with Hawks coach Pete Carroll that despite their many mutual friends and long careers, they haven’t worked together.
“I’ve had people wonder what Pete Carroll is really like, and I tell them he’s exactly what you see, the energy, passion, positivity and enthusiasm is always there,” Greg said. “He’s a great example of who I would want to be.”
Upon hiring Olson, Carroll cited him as a “quarterback guru,” and saw value in his focus on fundamentals and discipline. “He’s creative,” Carroll said. “He’s been a coordinator, called plays … he adds a ton to our staff.”
The challenges for Olson are to help Geno Smith keep performing as he did in his surprising Pro Bowl season of 2022, when he led the NFL in completion percentage after spending most of the previous six seasons on the bench.
“I’ve been super impressed,” Olson said of his early work with Smith. “You don’t see a lot of successful stories like that, but he waited and he prepared and helped the guys around him get better. I couldn’t be happier for him because he’s a hard worker has such a good attitude.”
Greg and Lissa have extended family still in Washington.
“It’s kind of full circle, 25 years in the NFL to bring him back to our home state,” Lissa said. “We grew up as Seahawks fans, and our whole families are Seahawks fans. It’s an interesting turn of events – as our whole marriage has been.”