Jake Olson
Jake Olson lost his left eye to retinoblastoma at ten months old. When doctors told him at twelve that the right one had to go too, he had about a month of sight remaining, and he spent part of it at USC, where head coach Pete Carroll had opened the program to him. A team practice in 2009 was the last thing Olson ever saw. He then taught himself to long-snap by feel, played two varsity seasons at Orange Lutheran High School, and in 2015 joined USC as the first completely blind player in Division I football. On 2 September 2017, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, with USC up 48-31 on Western Michigan late in the fourth quarter, Olson jogged on and delivered a clean snap; Chase McGrath converted the extra point in a 49-31 win. Western Michigan's coach, Tim Lester, had agreed beforehand not to rush the kick. "I loved being out there," Olson said. "Something that I'll remember forever." He is now president of the talent-booking company Engage, a keynote speaker and an author; he won the U.S. Blind Golf Association National Championship in 2019 and played in the first U.S. Adaptive Open in 2022.