North Carolina State University Athletics
#tbt: Former Pack QB Living a Cowboy Life
11/20/2014 12:00:00 AM | Football
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This is the last cowboy song
The end of a hundred year waltz.
The voices sound sad as they’re singing along.
Another piece of America lost.
The Last Cowboy Song, by Ed Bruce
Olin Hannum, the subject of this “Throwback Thursday” piece, is himself a bit of a throwback. He’s a guy who always felt more at home in jeans and cowboy boots than in shoulder pads and cleats, although he’s been successful in both uniforms. A guy who rides the range, ropes steers and breaks wild horses. It’s a life he grew up with and a life that he’s happily living.
Although he’s always been a cowboy, football was definitely in Hannum’s DNA as well. His father, Jack, played football at Utah State and then went on to a successful stint as a high school coach in Utah, winning state titles. Olin was the Utah 5A MVP in high school, and went on to star at Snow College.
When longtime BYU offensive coordinator Norm Chow joined Chuck Amato’s first staff, he brought the talented JUCO quarterback with him. That same year, another quarterback joined the Wolfpack as a true freshman. That young player, Philip Rivers, would go on to set an NCAA record for starts by a QB, which meant Hannum didn’t see a great deal of action behind center during his two years with the program.
“Even though I sat the bench most of the time out there, there was a lot of competition at practice,” Hannum said recently from his home in Idaho. “It’s funny because I still have people ask me, ‘did you really play with Philip?’ It’s nice to know that I didn’t play behind somebody that wasn’t any good. That would have made it a lot worse.
“I’d be lying if at times I don’t wonder how good I could have been if I had played somewhere else. I would have liked to have known how good I was because I felt like I competed pretty good at practice. Even when I got in the games I felt like I could contribute even though they had me playing different things. “
An elusive scrambler, Hannum played in 16 games in his two seasons, and was the squad’s second-leading rusher in 2001 behind Ray Robinson.
After graduation, he moved back to Utah and started a career building custom cabinets, a skill he learned from a former junior college coach. Although his football career was over, he continued his other sport – one that was engrained more deeply in his blood than football ever was.
“Rodeo is definitely in my blood,” Hannum says. “I’ve done it my whole life. My father went to national finals four or five times and was the college national champion in calf roping. My grandpa rodeoed, by brother rodeoed. That’s how all the rest of my family went through school - on rodeo scholarships.”
Like his fellow Wolfpack quarterback, Hannum’s professional career is still going strong. He finished 29th in the world standings this year, despite battling injuries for much of the season. He won the steer wrestling competition at Rodeo Houston this year, one of the biggest events in the U.S.
Hannum says that football and rodeo are much more similar than it would seem. “I only have a few seconds to do what I do in rodeo, but most of the stuff I’ve learned I’ve learned through football - how to make a game plan, how to get prepared. In football, I prepared for another team. Now I prepare for an animal that you’ve got to go against. You look for habits. Cattle try to do the same thing just about every time. They’re just creatures of habit just like we are. It’s a lot alike.”
In 2008, Hannum married his junior college sweetheart, Natalie. On the way to their honeymoon at the Carolina Beach, he brought her by NC State. “The stadium was awesome. It was so different from how it looked when I was there,” he says.
The couple now has two little cowgirls: Cheznie (2-1/2) and Kenndy (8 months). Hannum says it’s hard being gone so much when he’s competing, but that when he’s home, Cheznie goes everywhere with him.
“She’s got me wrapped around her little finger,” he laughs. “If I go out to do chores and feed the animals, she’s ticked off if she doesn’t get to go. This morning I had to get some things done, so I had to leave before she woke up or else it’s too hard to tell her she can’t come.”
Cheznie rides with her daddy frequently around their property – a 24-acre spread in Mulad, Idaho, just north of Utah. “A ranch out here is several thousand acres, so this is just a little place. But we’ve got some land and an arena to ride in. It’s great.”
In September, Hannum lost his beloved parents, Jack and Lynn, on back-to-back days to different illnesses. “It’s been tough,” he says. “I never asked anybody how it was to lose a parent because I never really thought about it. In the back of your mind they’re always there.”
A couple of days after their death, Hannum honored the memory of his parents by winning the steer wrestling event at the PRCA Champions Challenge in Amarillo.
“Cowboy, business and family. That’s what my life’s about these days.”
And life … for this cowboy … is good.
