CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Panthers legend and current Fox Sports Analyst Greg Olsen just wrapped up his third season in the booth calling NFL games.
Now Olsen is back in Charlotte continuing his community efforts through The HEARTest Yard Foundation.
Olsen joined WCNC Charlotte's Ashley Stroehlein to discuss The HEARTest Yard and its upcoming Ungala event at Steak48, working as an analyst, the Panthers' recent hires, and more.
Q: Over a decade of The HEARTest Yard, just looking back from the beginning until now, what are you proud of that you've been able to accomplish and give back to the community?
A: It's hard to believe. We celebrated our 10th anniversary last spring. What started as a really trying time for our family, obviously, with our son, TJ being born in 2012, and undergoing the amount of open-heart surgeries and the journey that he's been on, just back in 2021, he had a full heart transplant. So, it's been, it's been quite the journey. But now he's 11. The HEARTest Yard is almost 11. Just to think how far we've come. We started as an in-home nursing program where we just wanted to raise money and allow families to bring in nurses and therapists and caregivers to help ease that transition from the hospital into the home as they prepared for their next surgery. And now we have The HEARTest Yard Congenital Heart Center, which is a 20,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art outpatient service with all the subspecialties of the cardiac program here in Charlotte. We have a neurodevelopment clinic that we funded, we just recently expanded our efforts down to Charleston, South Carolina with MUSC Children's Hospital. We now are building the HEARTest Yard nursing program there is a kind of starting point very similar to how we did here in Charlotte. It's been pretty crazy to see how fast we've grown and how far we've come and events like this, you know, community support and the partners that we've been able to build here in the local community are the only reason why it works. People continue to come to our events, people continue to open their doors to host us and have us, and, frankly, without all of that, none of it would work. So, we're very grateful. This is arguably the best night of our year is be able to do this event.
Q: Third year of the Ungala, what makes this event special, what makes you want to continue doing it?
So Steak48 obviously helps anyone who's had dinner here, whether it's here in Charlotte, or anywhere in the country ... I think the reason we call it the Ungala is unlike most charity events where you go there, you're served the plated dinner, and the whole time people are just talking to you and asking you for money and selling you stuff and buying tickets and auction items. We don't do any of that. We have a quick little presentation during the cocktail hour and then you sit down whether you come with four people, two people, or 20 people, you buy your table, you sit with your people, and you have a great dinner. It just feels like you're having a Saturday night out on a Monday night. The whole restaurant is ours, all the staff, all the servers are incredible. That's it. That's the whole night. I think people have really connected with that they don't. They're like, listen, I bought my table, I paid for my chair. Let me enjoy my time with my friends. Let me mingle, let me connect, let me network with some really interesting people from around the Charlotte community. I think that's the element that people continue to want to come back and experience. We're thankful now that we're able to do it now for the third year.
Q: Speaking of the community, obviously you played here, Charlotte is home for you, but you continue to have the support that you have from the community, whether it's sponsors or people buying a ticket or old teammates showing up or new guys on the Panthers roster. What does it mean just to continue year after year to have that type of support?
I think anytime you do what we do here in the community, you always fear like at some point people move on, get over it and they're like are we going to move on, there's another really cool project or another cool initiative that we can throw our weight behind. We're just constantly reminded how much people understand the work that we do and understand the value of supporting Levine Children's Hospital, not just their cardiac program, because obviously, that's what we support, but just the entire hospital in general. I mean, I always say it's the best place you hope you never have to go to. Unfortunately, for a lot of families here in Charlotte, that's not their reality. It wasn't our reality. We needed it, we relied on it at our hardest times, and we're grateful that it's there, we're grateful that it's continued to grow and continues to get the support of the community. For as long as we can, we're going to do everything we can to make sure they have all the resources and that they have everything needed to provide the next families that come behind for the last 10 years and for the next 20 years, there's going to, unfortunately, be other families just like us that need that care. Our goal is that hopefully, they get better care than we got. If we can continue that, that pathway forward - mission accomplished.
Q: Obviously, I have to ask, but how do you feel about the future of where you're at the booth and whether you're with the number one team or not?
A: I mean, all things indicate that Tom (Brady) is going to come and do it. You know, from everything that we've heard, everything everyone's heard, what that means for me going forward is yet to be determined. My goal, and Fox knows this from the very beginning, from the time I took the job, I said, I'm not taking this just content on being one of the crews. I want to be the best crew, I want to be on the best crew and call the best games. If not, why I'm not going to waste my time? I don't have to do this. They understood that and I think that's a big reason why they gave me the opportunity to call these games because they believed in me, and they trusted me that I wasn't going to embarrass them. But that goal hasn't ended. So you know, when Tom comes and if this opportunity goes away, then we'll see what else is out there. We'll see what else is in there internally at Fox, we'll see what else is out there around the league. But that goal doesn't change again, that doesn't mean necessarily next year, I'll do it. Is there a clear path to getting back to a top team? That's the goal? And how does that exactly play out? I don't think anybody at this point knows, right?
Q: Would you trade the booth for coaching or a front office position, at some point?
A: I'd be a head coach, I would consider being a head coach. It'd be very hard to leave my current job. It's a good gig doing what I'm doing now, coaching is a whole different animal. But if a unique opportunity presented itself I got to run a team and really do things the way I would do things after being around it for a long time. I think anybody that loves football, anybody that's grown up in football like I have, and it's pretty much been their entire life for as long as they can remember. Who wouldn't? Right? Like who wouldn't consider that and whether those opportunities ever come or not? I don't know. But I have no doubt in my mind. I could do it. Zero doubt and again, the chances of me actually doing are probably less likely than doing it but there's no doubt in my mind I could do it.
Q: Speaking of head coaches and change a lot of that going on in the league of course right here in Charlotte as well. What do you make of the GM hire and Dan Morgan and the head coaching hire in Dave Canales?
A: Listen, when I call Panther games, I don't root for the Panthers. The rest of the year I live here, my kids are Panther fans. I want them wearing Panther gear to school. I want to one day I guess when I’m not working on Sunday, I want to go to Monday night games, I want to go to Thursday night games when I'm not working. We're Panthers fans. This was my home. This is where I built my career. This is where I built my reputation and had the bulk of my success like, I want Dan to do well, I want Dave Canales to do well like I root for those guys. I rooted for Frank Reich, I rooted for Fitterer, right? I want the organization to find stability and get back to a semblance of what we were not too long ago. I think they're trying. I give Dave Tepper a lot of credit, you know, he's not just sitting on his hands saying, well, you know, we'll let this play out. Like, if it's not if it's not right, fix it. So, I hope this is right. I hope Dave Canales is the right hire. I know Dave well, I spent a year with him in Seattle and got to know him personally, one of the coaches I connected best with in my short time out there. So, I'm rooting for him. I'm a fan of him I would do whatever they would need for me to support them and whatnot. I want them to do well. I love Dan Morgan. I think he's smart. Obviously, we have a lot of ties back to Miami and I've known him for a long time. So, I hope they're the answers. I'm confident that they are, I have no reason to believe they're not. They understand the job they have they understand that it's going to be it's going to be a tall one. I don't think anyone's just going to snap their fingers overnight and it's all of a sudden going to get miraculously better it's going to be a process, it's going to be a step by step one that I think if they can just show consistent growth they'll get the leash to see it through because obviously, that hasn't been the case the last two times.
Last year The HEARTest Yard Ungala raised $275,000 dollars which helped assist at least 60 families with in-home nursing care. For sponsorship or tickets contact Molly Ansbro at mansbro@r4r.org.
Contact Ashley Stroehlein at astro@wcnc.com and follow her on X, Facebook and Instagram.