‘Tough to be without him.’ Harrison Central will never forget legendary baseball coach
When Pat Olmi died Dec. 16 following a heart attack, the former Harrison Central baseball coach was in the process of returning to the profession he’d always loved.
Olmi, who retired from Harrison Central in May 2017, was leaving the central office for the Long Beach School District after finishing paperwork that would allow him help a former assistant of his, Wesley Strickland, coach middle school baseball.
“I needed an assistant coach or two and we were looking for a paraprofessional at the time,” Strickland said. “They asked me who I knew and, of course, he was the first one I thought about. It would get him back in the game. His knowledge and experience in the game was going to be great for the kids. He got along with the kids so well.”
After leaving the office, Olmi suffered a heart attack while driving. He was the only person in the vehicle and died later that day at Ocean Springs Hospital at age 61.
“It’s tough to be without him, especially with baseball season coming up,” Strickland said. “I knew he was excited about that.”
Olmi spent 35 years in coaching with 20 of those seasons at Harrison Central. He was a two-time selection for Sun Herald Coach of the Year. Over his last eight seasons, the Red Rebels were 122-74 and made it to the Class 6A state title game in 2013 with Cleveland Indians prospect Bobby Bradley in the lineup.
Olmi served as a graduate assistant at Mississippi State under the legendary Ron Polk before getting his first head coaching job at Rolling Fork in the Delta. In 1996, he made the move to the Coast when he became the head coach at Harrison Central at a time when the Red Rebels were far from the respected program that they are today.
“He had to brow beat them that details separated winners from losers,” said Shane Rutledge, a former former Long Beach head coach and Olmi’s assistant at the Lyman school. “He taught them that they had to pay attention to everything they did and how hard they had to play. That was going to dictate whether we had success. That third year, we made the playoffs.”
From that point on, Harrison Central became an established program considered one of the more competitive baseball teams in South Mississippi.
Pat Olmi’s approach
Olmi’s style as a coach was more old school than new.
“He was totally vested in his players growing up and becoming men,” Rutledge said. “He would not only be honest with players about what his expectations were, but he wouldn’t let players lie to themselves about what they were doing. He had no problem pulling a guy to the side and tell him, ‘You’re not playing hard’ or you’re not doing this. He’d then explain what they’d have to do. He wanted to make sure his expectations were clear and he’d tell them whenever they’re misleading themselves. Whoever wrote his obituary, said, ‘He was known for his direct style,’ and that’s the nicest way you could put it. He’d call you out for your (nonsense). It was direct.”
The Rev. Joseph Uko of St. Joseph Catholic Church described Olmi’s approach to his coaching career not as a profession, but a vocation.
Rutledge is in agreement.
“He slept and breathed coaching on another level,” he said. “Pat never married or had kids. He was just more devoted to his calling than most of us. He lived it on another level.”
A passion for Harrison Central
When he wasn’t coaching, Olmi was attending other Harrison Central sporting events. If the Red Rebels or Red Rebelettes weren’t playing, he’d sometimes travel to watch some of his former players compete in college.
“He had compassion for not just his players, but he loved the students of Harrison Central,” Harrison Central softball coach Jimmy Parker said. “He followed my players and he followed his former players that are grown and have children of their own. He was known to show up at a T-ball game or Pee Wee football game supporting his players. It’s crazy. That’s the kind of guy he was. He was known to show up at birthday parties, even.”
Olmi developed close bonds with coaches that worked with and competed against him. At Long Beach, a chair was set aside in the bullpen so Olmi could watch Rutledge’s team compete if Harrison Central wasn’t playing that night.
“He was a similar friend to his coaching style,” Rutledge said. “He was a good listener. I could talk to him about anything. He would not offer solutions very often. He’d usually turn it around and tell you that you’re in a situation because of something you did. A lot of coaches want to fix to fix everything. He was the type that would restate what I said and let me know that it’s my fault. He was going to tell you what you necessarily don’t want to hear. It allowed for me to grow personally.”
Olmi and Parker shared plenty of late night conversations after games, attempting to make sense of what had just taken place.
“After my games, I’d vent to him — win or lose,” Parker said. “He was a listener. He let me just talk away. He knew my kids just about as good as I did.
“Pat never married and never had children, but he had thousands of children, really. My daughter doesn’t have a godparent, but Pat would have been one. He looked at her as if she couldn’t do wrong. He’d get her stuff. He did that to a lot of kids. He had a great baseball knowledge, but his impact goes farther than that. His goal was to develop young men and young women in the classroom. They called him, ‘Uncle Olmi.’ I’d get down here to practice (and the softball players) would be gathered around him. He was a guy they could talk do. He’d listen, too.”
