Steelers' inside LBs coach Olsavsky takes hands-on approach

Fitting that when a scrum broke out during Steelers practice Wednesday, Jerry Olsavsky was right in the middle of breaking it up.

A former Pitt star and Youngstown, Ohio, native who's in his first season as the Steelers' inside linebackers coach, Olsavsky seemingly always is in the middle of the action.

He wants his players to play that way, too.

“Coach is high-energy — real high-energy,” inside linebacker Terence Garvin said. “He's always ready to go, always ready to do something — that's just his personality. He's not the type to just sit around.”

It doesn't take long in watching a Steelers practice to get that idea.

After many of the dozens of daily reps in team drills, one man typically runs to the ball once the play is blown dead, spotting it before giving both the “tackler” and the ball-carrier a pat or slap or word of encouragement.

It's not coach Mike Tomlin. Not any of the other 11 assistant coaches. Most often, it's Olsavsky.

“That's just how he is,” inside linebacker Sean Spence said. “That's Coach ‘O.' You always see him on the field being active.”

Similarly, while certainly deferring to special teams coach Danny Smith, one might get the impression during practice that Olsavsky's official duties also included special teams.

It's not uncommon to see Olsavsky, who spent almost a decade as a linebacker under Chuck Noll and Bill Cowher, running up and down the field next to the “gunners” — screaming to fire them up — or running into the middle of the line to slap the shoulder pads of a player who made a nice block or other play.

“He's having a blast,” said inside linebacker Jordan Zumwalt, who was waived/injured by the Steelers on Wednesday. “No matter what, if anyone loves this game, it's Jerry ‘O.'

“He's a lot of fun to be around — and Jerry is fun to learn from, too.”

Ian Wild experienced that firsthand when he was moved from safety to inside linebacker for practice earlier this week. Olsavsky gave Wild one-on-one instruction on everything from blocker-shedding techniques to positioning to making reads.

“He's a good coach. He knows what he's talking about,” Garvin said. “He played for a long time, so he tells you different ways of going about stuff, both as a player and as a coach how he's seen it.”

Since retiring as a player in 1998, Olsavsky has worked his way up the coaching ladder from volunteering at Thomas Jefferson to becoming an NFL position coach. He was hired in January to his newly created post.

Olsavsky's big breaks came in being hired in 2003 as linebackers coach at Youngstown State and seven years later when Tomlin brought him in as a defensive assistant. The quality-control role fit the detail-oriented Olsavsky well. Now, he runs his own meetings.

“I think I can help them out in that I played in this defense, and just having the attitude that I grew up playing with and about my interpretation of the game of football,” he said.

Which is?

“It's a war out there. You can get hurt any play, so to make sure you don't, you've got to really be going. ... You've got to do some things with a whole lot of spunk.”

If that's Olsavsky's interpretation of football, what about his interpretation for the inside linebacker position?

“We set the defense. We need to really make sure everything's going,” Olsavsky said. “We had a couple snaps in the game last week that weren't set. Sometimes, somebody's got to stand up and say, ‘Hey, this isn't going on anymore.' And in most situations on defense, that's the inside linebacker.”

Olsavsky noted that, quite literally, the inside linebackers are in the middle of the defense. The play never goes directly away from them, and the action is never going to be too far away from them.

That lends to the philosophy and mindset of how Olsavsky played — and how he wants his players to play.

“We're in the middle, we can make every tackle. And that's what our job is,” Olsavsky said.

“That's our motivation: trying to make every tackle out there. ... That's how I've always played — and I think that's how inside linebackers should play: Be right there in the middle of it.”

Just how Olsavsky coaches.

Chris Adamski is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. Reach him at cadamski@tribweb.com or via Twitter @C_AdamskiTrib.