'Burgh’s Best to Wear It, No. 54: Jerry Olsavsky could be counted on to make the stop

The Tribune-Review sports staff is conducting a daily countdown of the best players in Pittsburgh pro and college sports history to wear each jersey number.

No. 54: Jerry Olsavsky

No matter what number he wore — and he wore both Nos. 54 and 55 playing football in Pittsburgh — there was one number for which Jerry Olsavsky could be counted on every season he was a starter.

Jerry O was good for 100 tackles.

Olsavsky might be better known for his days with the Pittsburgh Steelers, where he played for 10 seasons and is now the inside linebackers coach responsible for tutoring star rookie Devin Bush.

But Olsavsky made his bones wearing No. 54 at Pitt, where the 6-foot-1, 217-pound inside linebacker from Youngstown, Ohio, recorded three consecutive 100-tackle seasons for the Panthers in the late 1980s.

Olsavsky was named an All-American as a senior team captain in 1988, when he made 129 stops. He finished with 367 career tackles, which ranks seventh in school history, and scored on a 75-yard interception return in the East-West Shrine Game.

His stellar collegiate career earned Olsavsky the nod over Hardy Nickerson as Pittsburgh’s best to wear No. 54. Nickerson only became a five-time Pro Bowl pick after he left the Steelers for Tampa Bay.

Perhaps no one described Olsavsky better than Steelers coach Chuck Noll, who said this after drafting him in the 10th round (No. 258 overall) of the 1989 NFL Draft: “He just gets it done.”

That was Olsavsky’s mantra. Despite being described as an undersized overachiever, he ignored the critics and used his smarts and lower-body strength to make up for his lack of speed to find ballcarriers and stop them dead in their tracks. Olsavsky believed you can’t measure a man’s intelligence and heart, and he had both in ample supply.

Never was that more evident than in 1993, when he earned a starting role alongside Levon Kirkland with the Steelers only to shred his knee in the seventh game against the Cleveland Browns. Despite the severity of the injury, he returned to football the following year and started 18 games over the 1995 and ’96 seasons.

Olvsasky had 232 tackles (83 solo) in nine seasons with the Steelers, before finishing his career with the Baltimore Ravens. His philosophy about playing inside linebacker hasn’t changed, from player to coach.

“We’re in the middle, we can make every tackle. And that’s what our job is,” Olsavsky said in describing an inside linebacker’s job. “That’s our motivation: trying to make every tackle out there. … That’s how I’ve always played — and I think that’s how inside linebackers should play: Be right there in the middle of it.”

Check out the entire ’Burgh’s Best to Wear It series here.