NORTH PORT, Fla. - After Parkview High’s baseball team won the state championship game last year, Cade Brown hopped on the bus and checked his phone. He saw a message from Matt Olson, a Parkview alum and one of the best first basemen in baseball.
It read something like this: “Congrats! That’s big-time. Keep the tradition alive.”
This is what 17-year-old Cade and his brother, 13-year-old Beckett, have come to expect from Olson, who has remained in touch with his roots despite his growing fame. Olson regularly checks in with the Brown boys, who are the sons of Olson’s high school coach, Chan Brown. He’s a role model for them, someone who offers them advice and sets an example.
Both boys have known Olson for most of their lives. They watched him in high school and have followed him since. All along, he’s been a mentor for them.
“I think he has stayed the same ever since high school,” Cade said by phone.
Added Beckett: “Ever since I saw him play in high school, I knew he was going to go far. But I didn’t know that he would be doing this.”
If you’d like to get a sense of who Olson is off the field, it’s best to look at how he gives back. He’s remained in touch with the Parkview program. He’ll go there and address the baseball team, or he might text some advice to a struggling hitter.
Olson is an All-Star with two Gold Gloves to his name, but he’s never acted too big for those who helped him reach this point. He continues to be less of a star and more of a regular person.
“I think it goes without saying that I wouldn’t be here without Parkview and Chan,” Olson said. “Whether I realized it or not at the time, it instilled a work ethic and commitment to baseball I still like to carry on.”
For Cade and Beckett Brown, Olson is an example. The boys remember his Parkview days, complete with smiles and home runs. They saw his work ethic.
Now they each have a relationship with him. He checks in with them, and they reach out to him. He’s helped them in different ways.
When Cade struggled on the field last year, Olson texted him something like: “Stay with it, keep working. You’ll get through it. Just work hard and stay positive.”
And Beckett, who is younger, said Olson provided this advice: “He just told me to keep my focus on the things that I want to do while I grow up and don’t waste time on stuff that you don’t want to do.”
Cade and Beckett are both huge Braves fans. They’re excited to see Olson play in person more often than they ever could when he played in Oakland.
Olson is replacing franchise-icon Freddie Freeman, who won’t ever be forgotten. But Chan Brown, the coach, urged Braves fans to give Olson a chance.
“I think people will fall in love with Matt Olson in Atlanta, with what he can do on the field,” he said. “And then when they learn the person he is off the field, they’re going to love him even more.”
The Parkview kids see it up close. Usually when Olson texts a struggling player, his advice is this: Slow it down. “I remember being in high school, that everything just seems way more amplified and important than it truly is,” he said. “Normally when you slow it down and stop getting so worked up, things turn out better for you.”
Even as big-league life got busy, Olson still made time for those back home. The Braves put a heavy emphasis on clubhouse culture, and Olson, with his humility, shouldn’t have an issue fitting into the mix.
“I think he’s going to really end up being a face of the franchise,” Chan Brown said.
The Braves thought so, too. They gave Olson the most lucrative contract in team history. The Atlanta boy is now with his hometown team. He knows he’s replacing Freeman, but he wants to be only Matt Olson.
Who is Matt Olson?
Start with the relationship he has with his high school coach’s kids.
“I think it shows how humble he is even though he’s a big leaguer,” Cade Brown said. “He could’ve just forgotten about where he came from and everything, but he still comes back and still helps out his hometown and everything else.”
