EDITOR’S NOTE: VUCommodores.com spoke with Buster Olney in March of 2020 before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Having grown up on a dairy farm in Vermont, Buster Olney admits he had little to no awareness of big-time college athletics, much less the fervor with which it was followed in the Southeastern Conference.
Olney, who came to Vanderbilt University in the mid-1980s, is able to laugh now at his welcome-to-the-SEC moment. As a freshman at a basketball game, Olney watched Vandy guards Phil Cox and Al McKinney try to chase down a loose ball—only to be split by “some big guy” who gained possession and slammed the ball into the basket.
That big guy was Auburn’s Charles Barkley.
“I had no idea,” Olney said. “And when you don’t have any idea of being around big-time college sports—for me to come to an SEC school was really invaluable.”
What Olney did have an idea about was wanting to write. And he wanted to write about athletics. He joined The Vanderbilt Hustler student newspaper and began to cover as many on-campus sports as he could—he recounted how he often found himself at Vanderbilt soccer and women’s basketball events.
At the time, Olney was on the same Hustler staff as Grantland Rice Scholarship recipient Mike Cornwell.
“When I came here, and if you looked at my college grades you’d know this to be true, I just wanted to write as much as possible. I was a history major here. I love history, but I wanted to write,” Olney said. “Cornwell was a much more talented writer than I was. I knew that.
“I was not in his class as a writer in terms of my abilities. I joke about setting the record for most college inches written. I needed that. I needed as many reps. There are some hitters who can step on the field and take 10 swings and be fine. I need 100,000 reps. That was my takeaway. And I still feel that way. If I don’t write on a regular basis, then I feel like I’m lost.”
A 2010 Vanderbilt Student Media Hall of Fame inductee, Olney went on to work for the Nashville Banner, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times after earning his Vanderbilt degree. He now writes for ESPN and appears on numerous ESPN baseball broadcasts and shows.
Over the years, Olney said, he would joke with professional athletes that Vanderbilt was a sports writing farm with the likes of Skip Bayless, Dave Sheinin and Tyler Kepner, among others, having covered major athletics. And because of the growth of the Vanderbilt baseball program over the past 20 years, Olney has been able to talk about the Commodores in clubhouses across the country—dozens of MLB players once wore the black and gold.
Olney, BA’88, has also often attended a writers seminar organized by Vanderbilt Student Communications and said he relishes the chance to return to campus and Nashville and see its growth. And, he added, if there is one lesson he could drive home to aspiring writers and journalists, it is to never put down the pen.
“Don’t define … what you are as a writer at 18, 19, 20. I had an editor when I was 25 basically tell me I had to come to grips with the fact that I would never be able to cover Major League Baseball,” Olney said. “That made me angry at the time, and I get more angry as I get older.
“I always try to tell young writers, ‘Don’t define yourself. You’re going to get better.’ As you do it more, as you learn how to dig up anecdotes, as you learn you do interviews, you learn how to mine specific facts, how to structure a story—you’re going to get better as a writer.”
— Chad Bishop covers Vanderbilt for VUCommodores.com.
Follow him @MrChadBishop.
