Jerome Donald Olsavsky (born March 29, 1967) is a former professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

linebacker Linebacker (LB) is a playing position in gridiron football. Linebackers are members of the defensive team, and line up three to five yards behind the line of scrimmage and the defensive linemen. They are the "middle ground" of defenders, p ...

and coach in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL). He played for the

Pittsburgh Steelers The Pittsburgh Steelers are a professional American football team based in Pittsburgh. The Steelers compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. Founded in , the Steel ...

Baltimore Ravens The Baltimore Ravens are a professional American football team based in Baltimore, Maryland. The Ravens compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) North division. The team plays its ...

and the

Cincinnati Bengals The Cincinnati Bengals are a professional American football team based in Cincinnati. The Bengals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC North, North division. The c ...

Playing career

Olsavsky was born in the industrial town of

Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County, Ohio, Mahoning County. At the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of ...

. He gained early recognition as a star

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player at Chaney High School and went on to play collegiately at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

. Following his graduation, he was drafted by the Steelers in the 1989 NFL Draft. Olsavsky finished his playing career in 1998 with the

Coaching

When Olsavsky ended his career in professional football, he spent several years

coaching Coaching is a form of development in which an experienced person, called a ''coach'', supports a learner or client in achieving a specific personal or professional goal by providing training and guidance. The learner is sometimes called a ''coa ...

in various places, such as

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

. He also served as an assistant strength coach at North Carolina for one season. He then served as an assistant football coach at

Youngstown State University Youngstown State University (YSU or Youngstown State) is a public university in Youngstown, Ohio. It was founded in 1908 and is the easternmost member of the University System of Ohio. The university is composed of six undergraduate colleges an ...

for seven seasons coaching linebackers.

Steelers

Jerry was hired on January 29, 2010 to serve as the defensive assistant for the Pittsburgh Steelers, replacing

Lou Spanos Louis G. Spanos (born March 27, 1971) is an American football coach who was the defensive coordinator for the UConn Huskies football team, a position he held until the start of the 2022 season. He was a defensive quality control and assistant lin ...

. He was promoted to inside linebackers coach on February 6, 2015. On February 22, 2023, the Steelers hired Aaron Curry to replace Olsavsky as their inside linebackers coach.

Family

Jerry resides in Pittsburgh with his three children, Joseph, Emma, and Dominic.

References

1967 births Living people American football linebackers Baltimore Ravens players Pittsburgh Panthers football players Pittsburgh Steelers coaches Pittsburgh Steelers players Players of American football from Youngstown, Ohio Youngstown State Penguins football coaches Ed Block Courage Award recipients {{1990s-collegefootball-coach-stub