Fri, Apr 23, 2004 page24

• Ukrainian catches attention of scouts at summer camps

  • AP
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  Igor Olshansky was just 15 but already huge.

  A high school football coach spotted the 1.96m , 110kg teenager in the stands, watching a sport he was still learning eight years after emigrating from Ukraine.

  "I put him up against a wall and spoke for 30 minutes," Vince Tringali recalled. "I told him, `You're crazy kid. You have to get out there. If you keep growing, you'll be worth a lot of money.'"

  That prediction could soon prove true: Olshansky has parlayed his rare combination of strength, size and speed to shoot up the draft board in recent weeks, becoming a possible first-round sleeper in this weekend's NFL draft.

  According to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Olshansky would be the first player born in the former Soviet Union in the NFL.

  It's been a rapid ascension for a player who just a few years ago didn't even know there were 11 players a side in American football.

  "I didn't know anything about football," said Olshansky, who played in college at the University of Oregon. "I'd seen it, but I didn't understand what I was watching. It looked kind of crazy."

  That's not surprising considering where he came from. Olshansky was born in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, and came to the US when he was 7.

  Growing up in San Francisco, Olshansky played basketball and boxed -- sports more familiar to Eastern Europeans.

  "How many Igors do you know in the NFL? You find them in hockey and a few in basketball or maybe soccer. In the NFL? I don't think so," said Tringali, who coached Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Fouts at the same high school, St. Ignatius, but retired before Olshansky started there.

  "He was very raw," Tringali added. ``But he learned football. Football is not a rocket science. There's something about this kid. He's destined for greatness."

  Professional football wasn't exactly what Alexandra Olshansky had in mind for her son -- she would have preferred he go into medicine -- but she has accepted that his passion is sports, even if she and her husband don't understand football.

  At least the fans at Oregon made it easy for them to know when their son was successful. After almost every tackle, chants of "I-gor! I-gor!" rang out in Autzen Stadium.

  "They knew that I had made a big play whenever they heard my name," he said.

  The personable Olshansky ate up the attention, talking to the fans to fire them up.

  Olshansky heard his name quite a bit last season. He had 58 tackles, including 15 for losses and 6 1/2 sacks, on the way to being named the Ducks' top defensive lineman for the second straight year.

  Despite that, many questioned why he left early, saying he could have been a high first-round pick had he stayed for his senior season. He was motivated by the chance to help his parents financially and the belief he could be a first-rounder already.

  NFL draft consultant Gil Brandt sees tremendous long-term potential for a natural player who is still learning some of the ins and outs of football.

  Now 1.96m and 142kg, Olshansky wowed NFL teams with his impressive pre-draft workouts. He had a vertical jump of 85cm and ran a 40m dash in under 5 seconds. But where he really shined was the strength drills.

  After bench-pressing 100kg 41 times at the NFL combine -- one short of Isaac Sopoaga of Hawaii and four shy of a record -- Olshansky wouldn't be outdone at Oregon's pro day.

  With a legion of scouts looking on Olshansky recorded 43 lifts at 100kg.
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