Class act: whether lecturing college students, conducting research or training in the gym, Michele Olson now has the wind at her back - Real Women - Professor of exercise science Michele Olson: her story and conditioning techniques - Biography

Muscle & Fitness/Hers, June, 2002 by Jeff O'Connell

Michele Olson's favorite quote testifies to the risk inherent in ambitious journeys and not just those undertaken by manners. During her own voyage of self-discovery, the shore has repeatedly disappeared from her ken. This feeling of being lost was particularly acute for her as an undergraduate at Auburn University Montgomery (AUM) in Alabama. Drifting in and out of school the former high school academic all-star searched fruitlessly for the railwind of purpose having already transferred from Willamette University, (Salem, Oregon) after an alienating freshman year.

A lifelong athlete, Michele would eventually find her personal salavation in exercise, and her professional calling in teaching that discipline to others. Her path since then should inspire anyone experieencing similar doubts. In fact, so fully did she immerse herself in learning and teaching that today she lectures students who may find themselves in the same place she was 20 years ago., literally and figuratively. She holds the title of professor of exercise science at none other than AUM, where her sculpted body gives her instant credibility with today's jaded students.

Like most explorers, Michele isn't resting on past glories. On the contrary, her need to explore is now satisfied by the research interests which in recent years have focused on the realtionship between eatng, and body image, particularly among female athletes and more specifically female group fitness instructors. Says Michele, likening the open-ended nature of' research, with its unexpected twists and turns, to one of Gide's journeys: "Where is that land? In other words, when is it all going to come together?"

setting sail

Michele's journey began in Portland, Oregon. Her mother, intent on her daughter becoming a participant in life rather than a spectator, encouraged her from the get-go in academics and athletics. At age 3 Michele began dance lessons (ballet and tap), then took up baton twirling and gymnastics. When she wasn't taking formal lessons or studying, she could usually be found playing pick-up softball or flag football games with her three brothers.

Representative of this opportunistic approach was the time in' seventh grade when Michele's mother heard that one of the junior high tennis coaches had been state champ hack in the day. Says Michele of her motivated mom: "She bought me a racket and said: 'This is like getting free tennis lessons from a pro. The tryouts are tomorrow afternoon, so I want to make sure you go."' The tennis coach in question became a "second mother" to Michele during junior high, and the first in a series of teacher/coach/role models.

Instead of rebelling against such parental activism, Michele thrived on it. What's more, she enjoyed all of the sports and activities in question, even baton twirling. No wonder: Notable gigs included a halftime stint at a Portland Trailblazers basketball game and luaus' in Hawaii, where Michele and fellow majorettes would perform a lire-baton routine to the theme song from the early '70s jack Lord vehicle "Hawaii Five-0."

A couple of years later, it was Michele's high school tennis coach, also the football coach, who introduced her to weights. She and her teammates would do circuit routines like the football players were doing--presumably with lighter weights--and Michele quickly shed 15 pounds of baby far, "I was expecting maybe a higher-velocity serve or more oomph on my ground stroke, but I really hadn't made the connection that this could produce observable changes in my body structure," she says.

burnout

At the end of high school, Michele's plans, or lack' thereof, clashed with her mother's in a significant way for the first time. Burned out from years of striving successfully to be an A student, Michele, having graduated a semester early, wanted to sir out college for a year and a half to work Convinced by her mother that doing' so would be a mistake Michele headed off reluctantly to Willamette. She left there for Montgomery to work as a teacher in a tennis program, and it was there that she enrolled at AUM. Thus began a period in which she'd attend school and leave it by the quarter or semester, all the while teaching tennis, gymnastics and aerobics to make a living.

Michele eventually received a tennis scholarship to Huntingdon College in Montgomery. What stoked her newfound interest in school wasn't the scholarship, which she had already declined once, but rather an epiphany she experienced one day at the beach when she decided she wanted to pursue physical education as a vocation. She went on to receive a bachelor's degree in physical education from Huntingdon, and a master's degree in health and human performance from AUM, where she would also pursue her doctorate

Although Michele had to set aside much of her gymnastics and tennis teaching and coaching during this period she immersed herself more fully in straight-ahead fitness, earning a continuing-education credential that allowed her to give work shops and seminars to' fitness instructors enabling them to keep their certification up to date.