An initiative of Ottawa Elementary School District 141
Wherever you find Logan Olson, you'll hear his music. Sometimes it's the dynamic hum of his trumpet, the satisfying snap of a line drive into his glove, or even the awful clamor of the many broken bones he's experienced over the past few years (seriously, man, stay safe out there). Despite the instrument playing the melody line, those sounds are part of one song: the gradual swell of converging tones moving up the scale to its highest possible note.
Logan
Olson
Making His
Own Kind
of Music
Born into a family of music educators, it didn't take long for Logan to unleash his inner Bix Beiderbecke. He picked up the trumpet in 3rd grade, and since then, he's only set it aside for other priorities like playing baseball or riding his bike. Now a first chair in Shepherd Middle band, he tells us the top spot isn't without its share of pressure.
"I see it as a privilege," he explains, "Because that means my conductor really trusts me." Some moments frame an elevated responsibility, specifically when he's up for a solo part. However, due to the confidence from the well-established trust with his bandleader, he can carry that temporary spotlight to the other end, no matter how intense it may be. What's impressive about his emergence as a stellar player is his awareness that a reputation as a band colleague can strengthen trust with the conductor and with people as a whole. If you invest in Logan, he'll invest just as much, if not more, right back at you.
Logan is routinely in key as a third baseman, as well. He wants to attend Illinois State University and play with the Redbirds, a future he's eager to peek at now if he had a wishing machine available. Though he'd love to eventually coach, he doesn't have a particular preference for league or level, only a desire to be "a part of the band," so to speak.
In the summer of 2020, Logan sat the season out because of a nasty spill on his bike that broke the radius and ulna in one of his arms. He avoided fixation screws that would have affected his growth plates, but post-surgery, he was at a loss as to what to do with himself. The height of the pandemic dashed many opportunities, and he wasn't ready to hop on that bike again just yet, cast or no. Instead, he did something in the spirit of “anti-fragility," the opposite of the expected response to stress. Once he was cast-free, he started working out at a gym in LaSalle. Like his once broken bones (he would later go on to achieve a fracture in his hand – He plays hard if you couldn't tell), he found his confidence mending and his injured arm growing stronger. He says that without the injury, he wouldn't have approached fitness with the same determination. Even without the comforting rhythm of the field, he improvised a tune that carried him back to third base, a once fractured arm now practically bionic.
With a fresh dose of discipline and focus acquired from his ordeal, Logan is back on his bike in the summers and otherwise tearing it up on the field or in the band's brass section. It's a good-natured ruckus, which we should welcome and listen to attentively when we hear it. Ready? Here's the crescendo. The volume grows, a ground ball is flawlessly snatched up, A major to C major to major leagues to E major— fortissimo!
Even without the comforting rhythm of the field, he improvised a tune that carried him back to third base, a once fractured arm now practically bionic.