Olson’s Return Perks Up ‘Cats

A single, red rose rested in the empty blue chair--Section 16, Row 2, Seat 5.

Bobbi Olson missed a good game, a little closer than she would have liked, but an Arizona victory.

On an emotional night, less than three weeks after his wife’s death, Coach Lute Olson returned to the bench and directed Arizona to a 71-58 victory over USC on Thursday night at the McKale Center.

A crowd of 14,564 saw it, one short of capacity.

“I came on the court, and there was an empty seat over there,” Olson said. “That was the hardest thing to think about.”

Bobbi Olson, Lute’s wife of 47 years, died Jan. 1 after a 2 1/2-year battle with ovarian cancer.

You could see the strain on Olson’s face most of the night but he showed flashes of his old self, stomping his feet and flailing his arms when his guard, Gilbert Arenas, was called for a blocking foul with 8:14 left.

The moment seemed to ignite Arizona, pressing to deliver a win for its coach on a difficult night.

Arenas answered the foul with a three-point shot that gave Arizona a nine-point lead, and the Wildcats survived a late USC charge.

Olson said the hardest part of the day was dragging himself to the arena, which was named “Lute Olson Court” last year but changed this week to “Lute and Bobbi Olson Court.”

“During the course of the day there were times I was wondering, ‘Am I really ready to do this?’ ” Olson said after the win. “But, obviously, the team needed some stability.”

And so, too, did Olson, who has built relationships and a basketball fiefdom in 17-plus seasons as the Wildcats’ coach.

Olson did not step on the court until 2:30 before tipoff. He was greeted with a standing ovation.

For years, before home games, the Arizona band saluted the coach with the chant, “Hi Lute!” followed with “Hi, Bobbi!”

Thursday, the band could deliver only one half of the salutation.

After the game, Olson went over to thank the band personally for attending Bobbi’s memorial service.

“We had a wonderful relationship with Bobbi,” band director Jay Rees said. “She was a great supporter of the band. The guy [Lute] is all class. It was very touching for him to come over and acknowledge us.”

Imagine the horror of it. In June of 1998, Olson was in Europe conducting basketball clinics, when Bobbi, who went with him everywhere, developed stomach pains.

She was taken to a hospital in Budapest, Hungary, where doctors discovered a tumor during an emergency operation for a bowl obstruction.

The hospital was dark. It had no air conditioning.

Lute moved Bobbi to a hospital in Vienna.

Lute called in doctors from Tucson, but that didn’t change the diagnosis:

Ovarian cancer.

Doctors shrank the tumor with medication and removed it in September.

Bobby underwent treatment that fall and winter and, in March of 1999, Lute told fans at a postseason banquet that Bobbi was free of evidence of the disease.

Bobbi was in attendance last Feb. 26 when the McKale Center floor was renamed “Lute Olson Court.”

But the cancer returned and what was supposed to be a season for the ages became anything but.

Olson missed the team’s Dec. 9 game at Connecticut to be with Bobbi for what was termed a “medical procedure.”

Olson took an indefinite leave from the team on Dec. 30.

Bobbi died two days later.

Last Sunday, 3,500 people attended a memorial service at McKale Center. Bobbi was a surrogate mom to many of the players, inviting them over for hot meals.

“Thanks for coming on every road trip,” Bruce Fraser, 13th man on the 1988 team, wrote in an open letter. “Coach would’ve been impossible to deal with without you.”

Lute and Roberta (Bobbi) Russell married in 1953, a few months after they graduated from high school in North Dakota.

They were together 47 years and had five children, who produced 13 grandchildren.

It was Vicki, the oldest child, who told her dad, “Mom would want you back out there.”

Olson didn’t make the decision to return until Monday.

Some thought he would wait until Arizona played on the road.

“I wanted to do it soon to get some of the emotion out of the way before Thursday,” Olson said.

Perhaps Thursday was the start of something in a season that has gone haywire for a man and his team.

“It’s a small step,” forward Richard Jefferson said of the victory over USC. “But small steps turn into large steps.”

Arizona began the year ranked No. 1, with center Loren Woods boasting the Wildcats, with five Wooden Award candidates, could rank among the greatest teams in NCAA history.

But it has been one setback after another.

As Bobbi Olson’s health worsened, Woods was suspended for the first six games for taking money from a summer coach. Jefferson was held out of a game after it was revealed he received plane fare and NBA tickets from Bill Walton, father of Arizona forward, Luke.

Last week, while Olson was away, senior forward Eugene Edgerson did not make the trip to Washington as he contemplated his dwindling playing time and future.

But Edgerson was back Thursday night, along with his coach.

The only one missing was Bobbi.

“It still doesn’t seem real, frankly,” Olson said.