‘We’re getting coached by legends’: 3 former Panthers get after it … in middle school

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — On a clear fall night last week, 11 seventh- and eighth-grade offensive players huddled up and waited on instructions from Greg Olsen.

Two of Olsen’s former Carolina Panthers teammates were stationed nearby on the artificial turf game field. Luke Kuechly worked with the defensive scout team, while Jonathan Stewart offered a blocking tip to one of the young wide receivers.

Add in ESPN college football analyst and ex-Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge and Olsen’s father, Chris, a member of the New Jersey Coaches Association Hall of Fame, and it’s not a stretch to suggest that Charlotte Christian boasted one of the most qualified middle school coaching staffs in the country this fall.

“A kid from another school (was) like, ‘So, your coaches are Greg Olsen and Luke Kuechly. Is that good or bad?’” said James Greene, an eighth-grade lineman. “I’m like, ‘It’s the best thing ever. Because you’ve got people who played in the NFL and they’re here coaching middle school. It’s the coolest thing ever.’”

It was cool for the coaches, too.

Stewart, a running back who played 11 NFL seasons before retiring in 2019, had resisted Kuechly’s previous overtures to coach while Stewart’s two daughters were growing up. But with both girls a little older, Stewart agreed to join the Charlotte Christian staff in May. He’s glad he did.

“It’s been fun, especially doing it with these guys. It’s like a bit of a locker room feel again,” he said. “When guys say they miss football, you don’t miss getting tackled. You don’t miss getting beat up. You miss being able to be around your guys. So that’s been fun. And not ever having to question what we’re doing. We’ve got guys that know ball.”

Jonathan Stewart accumulated 7,318 rushing yards and 51 touchdowns in 10 seasons with the Panthers. (Joe Person / The Athletic)

Olsen has coached his three children — Tate and twins TJ and Talbot — in pretty much every sport as they’ve grown up in Charlotte. It’s in his blood: Chris Olsen won nine state titles at Wayne Hills (N.J.) High, where Greg set a school record with 27 touchdown receptions and was Rivals’ No. 2 tight end in the country in 2003.

With his father and Kuechly, Olsen coached Pop Warner for two years during Tate’s 11- and 12-year-old seasons. With Tate moving up to middle school, Greg Olsen called Charlotte Christian varsity coach Chris James to see if he could help.

“If it frees you guys up to focus more on the varsity and the JV, I can bring a staff of guys and just take the middle school off your hands,” Olsen said he told James. “And they were super receptive.”

While Kuechly was encouraging Stewart to join them, Olsen got a call from Blackledge, who had recently moved to Charlotte. After the two broadcasters went to lunch, Blackledge texted Olsen and said he was interested in assisting if Olsen needed an extra set of hands.

Charlotte Christian, an affluent private school in south Charlotte, has a history with former NFL players. Ex-Panthers kicker John Kasay was the school’s athletic director after retiring, while other NFL alumni such as Eugene Robinson, Pete Metzelaars and Bryant Young have coached for the Knights over the years.

When Olsen gathered the players for spring workouts in May, he estimated that 75 percent of them had never played football. But the group was not without talent, as Stewart learned when he accepted Kuechly’s invitation to attend practice.

“Luke kind of approached me and was like, ‘Just try it out,’” Stewart recalled. “We have two studs at running back. I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can work with this.’ So I was like, ‘Sign me up, coach.’”

Kuechly said Stewart brought a low-key style that nicely complemented Olsen’s intensity. The perennial Pro Bowl linebacker added there was an adjustment period as players grew accustomed to Olsen’s practices.

“I think initially they were a little bit — I don’t know if caught off guard’s the right word — but they were like, ‘Whoa, this is different,’” Kuechly said. “But I think the more they’re around us they understand, ‘He’s not mad at me. He’s not taking personal shots. I did something that we didn’t coach.’ And Greg’s just gonna address it.”

Before last Monday’s practice, Chris Olsen sat on the bench waxing and buffing several footballs that had lost their tack over the course of the two-month season. Greg Olsen welcomed Silas Madison with a good-natured jab when the eighth-grader jogged out a few minutes late.

“You got a new haircut. You look fresh,” Olsen said. “Let’s be on time.”

Luke Kuechly and Greg Olsen look on as the Charlotte Christian middle school offense runs a play during practice. (Joe Person / The Athletic)

Olsen kept things moving at a quick pace on the eve of the Knights’ final game, calling out formations and plays with terminology that seemed to mix NFL verbiage (“Omaha” and “Patriot”) with pop-culture references (“NASCAR” and “Biggie”).

“On the hop. We gotta go,” Olsen yelled. “We gotta go to defense.”

Around the same time, Stewart was explaining to a wideout that his downfield assignment could be a “game-changing block,” after telling one of the team’s smaller players he’d noticed his tackle in last week’s game. Meanwhile, Kuechly was shouting out defensive alignments — many of which had “dog” in the name — while asking Madison if he was more comfortable rushing off the edge or in the B-gap.

Kuechly coached Pop Warner with Olsen when deep playoff runs extended the team’s season into November and December. The middle school schedule — with weekends off — worked for the three Charlotte Christian coaches employed as broadcast analysts during the fall (Kuechly works with the Panthers radio team).

Olsen, bumped to Fox’s second booth with the arrival of Tom Brady this fall, said his worst travel hitch was catching a red-eye home from San Francisco late Sunday night before a Monday afternoon middle school game. He smiled when asked if the Charlotte Christian positions were volunteer gigs.

“Oh yeah,” Olsen said, “this costs me money.”

He’s not complaining.

The Knights’ season started with a tough, 8-0 loss to Holy Trinity’s eighth-grade squad and its wing-T offense.

“They’re pretty daggone good, man,” Kuechly said. “They’ve got all eighth-graders and they just wore us down at the end of the game. We’ve been on a roll since.”

The Knights did not score fewer than 36 points during a season-ending, seven-game win streak that included a 38-36, double-overtime thriller in the rain at Union Academy, which reminded Stewart of some of the muddy tracks he played on in the state of Washington.

After games, opposing players would ask the Charlotte Christian coaches to pose for photos. “It’s funny,” said Justin Adams, another assistant, “they’ll lose 36-0 and they’ll all come get a picture.”

Charlotte Christian players weren’t looking for keepsakes — at least during the season. “I’m gonna ask them to sign a ball at the end of the year, though,” said Graham Meyer, an eighth-grade punter.

Greg Olsen made three Pro Bowls as a tight end and played 14 seasons in the NFL … before becoming the Charlotte Christian middle school football coach free of charge. (Joe Person / The Athletic)

More than the 7-1 record, Olsen was most proud of the fact that the Knights ended the season with the same roster with which they began: No player quit, which Olsen hammered home during an inspiring, post-practice speech last Monday that was an ode to his players and the sport.

What you guys were able to do this year, the growth that we made from a bunch of guys that had never put on a helmet before. We’re doing lessons on how to strap shoulder pads the first week of practice. Think about how far we’ve come. Every single one of you guys. You young guys that didn’t even know what football was. … The eighth-graders, you guys were the identity of our team. The culture of our team, the leadership of our team. Watching you guys carry yourselves around the building was incredible. That can’t end because the season ends tomorrow. You guys are the leaders of your class. You’re the leaders of your grade.

Football is different. Football players are just different. And if the other sports don’t like it, too bad. Football is a different sport played by different kids. And that’s the way it’ll always be. You guys should be proud of it. You guys should be proud of what we’ve accomplished this year and how far we’ve come. We’ve never talked about record. We’ve never talked about winning and losing. Our expectation is that we play high to our standard every single day that we can. We’ve got one more shot.

Greene, the eighth-grade lineman, wasn’t sure what to think initially when Olsen got on him. By the end of the season, Greene was comfortable enough that he was impersonating Olsen in front of the entire team — with Olsen’s blessing.

“Once you got used to how he coached, it was just amazing,” he said. “The first time he yelled at me, I was scared. But once it carried on, I got used to it. You learned to do what he says very quickly.”

Following last Monday’s practice, the coaches, players and their families met in the cafeteria for a team dinner. The boys also enjoyed mom-provided meals before every game. “We really tried to make this a real program experience that typically these kids don’t get until high school,” Olsen said.

That included the practices, during which players would stretch and head to position drills, where they were taught by a Pro Bowl tight end, an All-Pro linebacker, a Power 5 quarterback, a Pro Bowl running back and a Hall of Fame high school coach.

Meyer admitted sometimes it was hard not to be a little starstruck.

“It’s so fun,” he said. “I still view them as legends. They’re coaches and legends because we’re getting coached by legends.”

(Top photo of Greg Olsen and Luke Kuechly: Griffin Zetterberg / For The Athletic)