USC long-snapper Jake Olson — who is totally blind — made headlines in September for executing a perfect snap on an extra point during a college football game. Now the odds-defying lineman is making headlines again, this time for driving a car on the Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Olson made the 1.5-mile drive with the aid of former NASCAR driver Todd Bodine.
Olson said, “Driving a car is a sense of independence, a way to get around. That’s one of probably the more frustrating things in life as a blind person is just the absence of having that opportunity to just hop in your car and drive and get food or drive and go hang out with someone. … To be able to drive a car and have that sense of freedom is big.”
USC long snapper @JakeOlson61 drove a car for the first time in his life this week at Charlotte Motor Speedway. #FightOn pic.twitter.com/ANhSIztV9g
— USC Trojans (@USC_Athletics) May 17, 2018
Olson and Bodine appeared on Fox Sports’ Race Hub to talk about the day at the track and explain what it was like to make the jump from driving on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles, to driving on a racetrack.
“To be out there on the speedway – and obviously one of that stature – was just amazing. but then to be able to drive on it was very special. We got, on the straightaway, going like 60 miles per hour, and so to be behind the wheel of a car going that fast was fun. I don’t know where else you could do that – not back on the 405 freeway in L.A.”
Here is Olson making his first snap in a college football game:
This is anything but a regular PAT.
Jake Olson, blind since age 12, just snapped for the first time in a live game. https://t.co/amyHcFoVue
— Pac-12 Network (@Pac12Network) September 3, 2017
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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