Not many collegiate student-athletes come across the opportunity to play six seasons of competition, and for those who do, it usually comes along with heavy baggage of hardship and setbacks.
It’s been a long six years for UH-Hilo Women’s Basketball’s Bree Olson — including battling injuries, the pandemic, three different schools and three degrees.
Olson was named 2022-23 Sakai and Harue Wakakuwa Female Scholar-Athlete at the University of Hawai’i at Hilo’s All-Sports Banquet in early May for achieving the highest cumulative grade point average with at least five semesters as a Vulcan.
On the court, Olson played in all but five contests this season, making eight starts and averaging 24.7 minutes and eight rebounds per game. While at UH-Hilo, the Tucson, Arizona native appeared in 50 games over four seasons — but her first year was spent sitting the bench as a redshirt to recover from a knee injury.
Olson arrived to the Big Island in Fall of 2019 from Pima Community College after transferring from Colorado Christian University, where she played 27 games as a freshman. In the end, it wasn’t the right fit — a result that had been culminating since Olson had made a rash signing-day decision senior year of high school.
A four-year player at Pusch Ridge Christian Academy, Olson had battled back from a torn-ACL injury her sophomore season. Before her final year of play, she decided on the last day of the early-signing period to put pen to paper Nov. 16, 2016 to become a future member of the Cougars women’s basketball team.
“I guess I didn’t really think that playing in college was a realistic goal for me after tearing my ACL until this summer when coaches started reaching out to me,” Olson told All Sports Tucson at the time.
In hindsight, Olson wishes she would have waited.
“I don’t know, I just picked it,” Olson said. “I ended up finding out the next day that there was a couple schools I really wanted to go to that really wanted me, so it was like instant regret.”
After an unhappy freshman year, she eventually found herself wearing a Vulcans uniform — albeit after redshirting a season and then going through the COVID-19 pandemic, which gave Olson even more time to continue playing.
It may not have been a result of her own decisions, but patience was beginning to pay dividends.
“It was really stressful at the time,” Olson said, “but I think that year was one of my favorites, team-wise, because we didn’t really have anything other than basketball.
“We still got to play our COVID year and some people didn’t — that sucks for them — but we got an extra year and it gave me more chance to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”
Olson wrapped up the 2021-22 school year earning a bachelor of arts in Kinesiology &Exercise Sciences. While many student-athletes have utilized the extra COVID year of eligibility to space out their undergraduate-degree courses, others added on a “second degree” just to fulfill the requirements to continue playing.
Olson went ahead and earned another bachelor’s altogether; this time in Administration of Justice.
When Senior Night arrived in mid-February of this year, Olson was unsure of what the near-future would look like — thinking she would maybe work toward a career in physical therapy or law enforcement.
Behind the scenes, the wheels were already turning, and she’s now planning to move to France to continue playing basketball.
“I’m not using either of my two degrees,” Olson joked. “I think I’m not ready to give up basketball. It’s just not my time to be done with the sport yet so I knew I wanted to keep going, but I just didn’t know where that would take me.”
Although Olson has learned the lesson of patience, it’s anything but that when it comes to taking care of academics.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d like to say I stay on top of things. Organization is the key. I also went to a really hard high school so I think that definitely helped in college.”
Among Olson’s other academic accolades include: three-time D2 Athletics Directors Association Academic Achievement Award (3.5 or higher), two-time member on Academic All-PacWest Team (3.0 or higher) and a three-time winner as UH-Hilo Women’s Basketball Scholar-Athlete of the Year. Olson graduated this year with a 3.91 GPA.
As for on the court, the grind is never ending.
“You might think you’re working really hard,” Olson said, “but you can always go harder. I think I’ve been content at some points in my life and I wish I could have done more. Seeing other people succeed is motivating. You can always work harder.”
