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Olander Family Celebrates Tyler's Big Win

For UConn fans, winning a national basketball championship, especially in such unexpected fashion, puts a smile on many faces. But for the Olander family of Mansfield, UConn's 2010-11 season will always be the one to remember.

It was early on the morning after the ’s triumphant moment in the national championship game. Like so many men’s basketball fans in Houston, Tracy Olander and her husband, Skip, were packed and ready to head to the airport for their flight home.

There was one huge difference, of course. The Olanders  just happened to be among a handful of parental units who could brag about having a son in the starting lineup on the newly crowned NCAA champions.

How does that change things? Not so much. A mother still needs to communicate with her son. So, just before departure, Tracy sent a text message to Tyler Olander.

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She typed: “Hope the celebration was fun. We’re heading to the airport. See you back in Storrs.”

 Tyler shot back his text reply immediately. 

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“We’re still celebrating,” he said.

Turns out there really isn’t a morning after for national champions – just hours of jubilation that stretch into the next day and beyond. Tyler, a freshman forward barely removed from his days as a student at and a youngster growing up in Mansfield, is living that dream right now – even if it comes with a little sleep deprivation.

After a brief celebration with family and friends at hotel headquarters, Olander and his teammates sat up talking and then napped on the flight back to Connecticut. A few hearty fans greeted the Huskies when they returned in the rain at Bradley International Airport. Then the team boarded a bus for the ride back to Storrs and an even bigger celebration inside Gampel Pavilion.

“I had a bunch of kids from [Mansfield and Storrs] text me and say, ‘We’re going to be there. We’re going to be there.’ I just sat back on my seat in the bus and said, ‘Man, I was the same way back in those days,’ ” Tyler said, thinking back to when he attended the welcome home party for UConn’s 2004 national championship team.

The biggest celebration of all is scheduled for April 17 when coach Jim Calhoun and the Huskies will before a rally on the north steps of the capitol building. But Olander says there are daily reminders of UConn’s huge accomplishment as he goes from class-to-class on the Storrs campus.

“Walking around campus, people will stop and say congratulations or ask to take a picture,” he said. “Me and Alex [Oriakhi] walked into one of the dining halls and everybody just started clapping for us. It was special.”

Olander will forever be the answer to some pretty cool UConn basketball trivia. He scored the first basket in UConn’s 56-55 semifinal victory over Kentucky on April 2. Then two nights later, he did the same thing against Butler and the Huskies went on to their .

In both games, Olander also was the first UConn player introduced in pregame festivities. It was a special thing for him and his parents to hear him identified from Mansfield, CT, as he trotted onto the court in front of more than 70,000 fans each game.

“I think it is [special to be the hometown guy],” Tyler said, “because I have a better understanding of UConn basketball and the tradition and all the players who have come through here. I think it means a little more to me.”

Olander played five minutes against Kentucky and had two points, one rebound and one turnover. Against Butler he logged seven minutes, contributing two points, three rebounds and one assist (a terrific outlet pass to Jeremy Lamb for a three-point basket that gave UConn a 26-25 lead early in the second half).

Those statistics may seem modest, but remember that Olander is not a product of a basketball hotbed. When he committed to UConn last year, there was speculation he would be held out of competition and redshirted in 2010-11. And even when Olander performed well in the preseason and earned a spot in the playing rotation, no one was predicting the Huskies would end the season on an 11-game win streak to cart home the Big East and NCAA championship trophies.

“It’s almost unreal,” Skip Olander said, when asked what it was like to watch his son win a national championship. “Calhoun said the same thing, but you almost have to pinch yourself to realize it is real. The whole march through the Big East tournament and the Final Four was just unbelievable. It could be one of the great accomplishments in basketball history.”

“To be part of that, and to have people say, ‘It was nice to have Tyler on the team because now we identify more with UConn basketball’ is tremendous. People I went to high school with 49 or 50 years ago have been in contact with me, either calling or texting. This Facebook thing is crazy. That makes it really, really special,” he continued

“There are things that go beyond basketball and winning. When they were leaving Gampel the other day after the celebration, a woman came up to Tyler and said her husband died in November and this team helped her get through it all. That’s really special,” Skip Olander said.

After arriving in Houston on Friday, the Olanders were very limited in the time they could spend with Tyler as he prepared for games. They did manage to go to lunch at a Houston restaurant and, by coincidence, Skip bumped into one of his former UConn teammates in basketball and baseball. Former Division I coach Tom Penders was conducting a book signing at the restaurant. Penders recently released a book titled Dead Coach Walking: Tom Penders Surviving and Thriving in College Hoops with Dallas sportswriter Steve Richardson.

Tyler’s older brother Ryan, who just completed his junior season at Fairfield, was in Houston, too. Sister Morgan, who helped E.O. Smith to a 22-3 record and the state championship game before losing to Hillhouse High, was unable to attend because of her hectic AAU schedule.

Skip and Tracy kept busy attending the games of all three children this winter. Together, UConn, Fairfield and the E.O. Smith girls combined to win 79 games and lose 20. Fairfield missed a shot at the NCAA tournament when it lost the Metro Atlantic title game to St. Peter’s. But Tracy Olander said Ryan did what a big brother was supposed to do and rooted hard for the Huskies.

“It was an unreal experience – just being at the Final Four, regardless of the fact that Tyler was playing in it,” Ryan said. “Being able to watch Tyler play in it was just that much more special.”

When the Huskies returned to their team hotel, Ryan told his little brother he was “so proud of him and happy for him.”

“There were so many people screaming and yelling and all the commotion,” Ryan said. “I doubt that he even heard.”

The Olanders shared their Final Four experience with their close friends – Tom, Carolyn, Nick and Ryan Burke. The Burkes moved from Mansfield to Florida when Tyler and Ryan Burke were classmates in sixth grade. Tracy said the boys are like brothers.

“We’ve remained real close,” Tyler said. “We’ve known each other since second grade. I go down there [to Florida] every summer. I’ll probably go down there a week this summer.”

Seeing his brother, his parents, the Burkes, and his best friend, was a great reward for Tyler when the Huskies arrived back at their Houston hotel for the team reception.

“When we walked into the lobby of the hotel [after the championship game], there were a lot of people but they were all in the front row,” Tyler said. “I went right to them and I just remember getting the biggest hug I’ve ever gotten in my life. They were just really proud and excited.”

It’s going to be that way for a while, wherever Tyler and his family go. Winning a national championship, especially in such unexpected fashion, puts a smile on many faces. But for this family from Mansfield, it will always be the season to remember.

“I don’t think anybody thought it was going to happen,” Tyler said.  “[As a team], we knew if we really worked hard, it could happen. We just kept that mentality through the whole season. So we just figured, why not? Why not us?”

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