Baseball
Favorite athlete: Anthony Davis
Favorite team: Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: District playoffs last year.
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: Air-balling a layup!
Music on playlist: Zach Bryan, Luke Combs, Riley Green
Future plans: Business of some sort
Words to live by: “Life still goes on…”
One goal before turning 30: Buy a house
One thing people don’t know about you: When I was younger, I spent a lot of time in the hospital with a metabolic disorder.
By Mary Jane Souder
It’s an interesting coincidence that Chase Olszyk is considering a career in the business world.
The Plymouth Whitemarsh senior is a fixture behind the plate for the Colonials’ successful baseball team and, according to his coach, brings a businesslike approach to the diamond.
“Chase is kind of a throwback, no excuses, just goes out there and plays the game the right way,” PW coach Chris Manero said. “If he doesn’t have a good game the one day, he usually shakes it off and has a better one the next day. He’s the kind of kid – if there’s ever any issues, he’s not going to be one of them. He just goes out there and does his business and does what we ask. He’s coachable and always has been. It’s important
to have those guys.”
Granted, there’s no real connection between Olszyk’s potential career path in the business world and baseball, but there’s no mistaking the senior captain’s approach is indeed businesslike.
“We have three captains, and they’re all a little bit different,” Manero said. “But I think coming into this season – hands down, everyone expected Chase to be in that role.
“He does that role really well. As a coach, I feel like he’s the guy I can go to if I need something done, and he’ll take care of it. I wouldn’t say he’s the most vocal, but he’s vocal in a quieter kind of way.
“I don’t like to use it because it’s such an overused term, but he leads by example. I tell our captains – sometimes leading by example isn’t enough because you have to have the courage to tell guys when they’re doing something wrong. I don’t think he’s the kind of guy that’s going to get in anybody’s face. He’s not like that rah, rah. He’s just so businesslike in everything he does.”
As the starting catcher the past two years, Olszyk assumed a leadership role well before he earned the title of captain.
“As a catcher, you kind of get put in that role, no matter what,” he said. “You have to be a leader.
“Last year, I felt like a leader even though I wasn’t a captain. I try to lead by example. Sometimes it’s hard to get someone to do something they never did, and it’s just not in them to do that. Some people don’t want it as bad as other people, and that’s just how they are.”
Olszyk possesses the skills to play at the next level, but that is not his plan. Instead of trying to find his niche at a school hoping to land his baseball talents – and he had opportunities, Olszyk’s priority was to choose a college he most wanted to attend the next four years. Penn State University is that school.
“I think it’s worth pointing out – sometimes when guys are planning to play in college, you get a little more out of them,” Manero said. “They know they’re not just working to be good this year, they’re working to make a team next year.
“Chase is certainly one of those guys who hasn’t stopped working just because he’s not playing in college. He wants to win, and that is pretty evident.”
A ‘program kid’
Baseball was always Olszyk’s sport of choice and has been a part of his life since he was four or five years old. He started basketball around the same time.
“I was never as good at basketball, but I just did it on the side,” he said. “It was mostly baseball. I grew up going to Plymouth Little League. We were all super close over there.
“Baseball has always been in my family – it was kind of the sport we play. My little brother plays now.”
As a youngster, Olszyk suffered from a metabolic disorder, but that never held him back.
“It was mostly when I was really young - I couldn’t go long periods of time without eating,” he said. “It really didn’t affect my sports because it was when I was younger.
“I spent periods of time in the hospital because I needed to be hooked up to an IV when I was sick. Now I am completely clear of it, and it’s just something that people outgrow over time.”
One thing Olszyk never outgrew was his love of baseball. He played basketball through his sophomore year of high school and still competes in a rec league, but baseball has always been his passion.
Growing up, Olszyk was a regular at Manero’s summer baseball camps.
“The guys that are seniors now are some of the ones that came every year they could since they were eight or nine, probably back to when we started,” the PW coach said. “He was one of the ones that was always there.
“My lasting impressions really are when he came up to the high school. He’s in a unique spot. We’re finally at a point now with the COVID stuff over - we have guys who actually had a full four-year experience.
“When he was a freshman, we were a little thin on catching, so we brought him up to all of our practices. We were getting him used to the system and trying to teach him, knowing he’d probably be the heir apparent.”
That experience was invaluable to Olszyk, who had a front row seat to a memorable season that saw the Colonials go 15-0 out of the starting gate his freshman year.
“It was kind of scary at first, but Mike Miller, who was two years older than me, really brought me in,” said Olszyk. “He was really good, and he mentored me.
“I feel like I learned a lot from him and just the way he plays, not performing-wise but just the way he carries himself. We were obviously really good that year. There were a lot of really good leaders on the team like Joe and Jesse Jaconski and all of them. It was fun.”
After a sophomore year playing behind Miller, who is now playing at Lackawanna College, Olszyk took over Miller’s role behind the plate and has been a fixture the last two years.
“Sophomore year, I probably got 10 at-bats,” he said. “I didn’t play much, but I still got the experience of practicing with them every day and being ready.”
Manero describes Olszyk as a steady voice in the locker room but a bulldog on the field.
“He puts that gear on every day, never asks for a day off,” the PW coach said. “We try and give him one once in a while, but he plays hard. He doesn’t stop hustling. As a catcher, you have to be in on every pitch, you have to be in on every play. In the last two years, he’s caught three no-hitters.
“He just has that presence back there. He tries not to let anything get past him, he’s just tough. People talk tough, but to actually show it and to act it – he’s a tough kid. Just in terms of that locker room presence, I’ve just always gotten a sense from my role, which is different – coaches don’t see everything, we don’t hear everything, but it just seems he commands the respect of other players. Guys kind of do what he does, they go where he tells them to go. Off the field, on the field, he’s just a mature businesslike tough presence.”
Looking ahead
This spring, the Colonials won their first 10 games in league play and are looking forward to extending their season well into the postseason.
“It’s kind of crazy,” Olszyk said. “It’s almost like my competitive baseball career is coming to an end. We’re winning right now, so we just have to keep winning.”
As for playing collegiate basketball, Olszyk – who has played for UnCommon on the club circuit – admits he initially thought it would be part of his future when he entered high school.
“I think I wanted to play in college until I visited the colleges and realized what I was getting into,” he said. “I realized I wanted to be where I wanted to be. I didn’t want to be stuck somewhere.
“I had a couple offers from D3 schools and one D2 school, but I didn’t want to go somewhere that maybe I was going to not like and just be there to play baseball. I’m going to Penn State. I really like it. I know I could maybe play club there. I don’t plan on ending my baseball career. I just don’t see myself playing at the college level.”
Olszyk, who plans to major in business, is a member of the National Business Honor Society and PW’s Student Coalition, a partnership with Whitemarsh Township Police that encourages young people to make good choices. Something Manero says Olszyk does.
“I think it’s the way I was brought up, things I learned over time, learning from other people,” he said. “The people who were here before me were very good leaders and did things the right way and always wanted to get better.”
Olszyk, according to his coach, is the definition of a program kid.
“To see somebody come up - basically you see the entire system from being a kid to being an understudy to being a starter,” Manero said. “When you’re with the varsity for four years – all the different guys you play with. He goes back to our 2021 team that started the season 15-0. Guys like Jesse Jaconski, who’s going to be at Penn State next year who was at UNC.
“Just some of the names that he played with that are now well into their college careers, and here he is now a captain and leader this year. I just can’t stress how much he’s been such an instrumental part of everything we’ve developed over the last four years but even beyond as one of these guys that was part of the program as a young kid.”
The program, according to Olszyk, shares a sense of community.
“We’re all really close,” he said. “Everyone has the same goal. You come up through all four years, you do everything the same, no matter what level – everyone does it the same, the same systems.
“By the time you’re a senior, I feel like all you want to do it win, and you have what it takes to win because it’s a winning program.”
