Ben Olsen in June 2012.
We all make life mistakes when we’re in our 20s. Relationships, career choices, artistic preferences. Life is full of lots of difficult decisions, and occasionally we muck them up. For D.C. United Head Coach Ben Olsen, his younger days were marked by what he today realizes were misspent times living outside the District.
In an interview with The Washington Post Magazine scheduled to run this weekend, Olsen, 35, looks back on his time not as D.C.’s soccer coach, but as one of its denizens. Olsen and his wife, Megan, live in a townhouse in Shaw, but it wasn’t always like that.
During the first few years of his playing career, Olsen lived in—gasp!—Fairfax, and later Arlington. He learned soon enough that the suburbs weren’t for him, though judging by one quote, it seems he wishes he had never set foot in Northern Virginia at all:
As a player, he lived in Fairfax, then Arlington. “I kept creeping closer to the city,” he said. In 2000, he moved into the District but “just on the inside of Chevy Chase Circle, which isn’t really the city, right?” He finally got to Adams Morgan, he said, “kicking myself for wasting all those years living in Northern Virginia.”
As many who have lived—or even spent a day—in Northern Virginia have done.
But by living in D.C. during his playing career, Olsen became one of the few players to actually live in the city for which his team is named. Current United players Ethan White, Chris Pontius and Dejan Jakovic live in the city; when the Nationals are in season, relievers Tyler Clippard and Drew Storen share an apartment near Judiciary Square. It should be said, though, that District residency is not necessarily a prerequisite of solid on-field performance. Bryce Harper lives in a high-rise apartment in Pentagon City, while Robert Griffin III rents a house in Leesburg. Both had fine seasons.
As for Olsen, who also lived in Adams Morgan for a while, he tells the Post he prefers the District because of its cultural and artistic diversity.
Also, it’s not Northern Virginia.
