FOXBOROUGH — When 18-year-old Gunner Olszewski arrived for fall camp at Bemidji State in 2015, associate head football coach Rich Jahner says he thought there was no way the defensive back would make the team as a true freshman.
“His senior year of high school, he had contracted shingles, so he lost all kinds of weight,’’ Jahner said in a telephone interview Monday. “My very first impression was, ‘Oh my gosh, he looks like a junior high student manager.’ I mean, the guy was skin and bones.’’
But Olszewski managed to avoid a redshirt year, impressing the coaching staff with his relentlessness and confidence, in spite of his smaller stature.