Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was watching on TV Saturday night when, toward the end of the Trojans’ win against Western Michigan, USC’s blind long snapper Jake Olson got into his stance and snapped the football on an extra point for the first time in his college football career.
Olson was born with a form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma and he lost his left eye at the age of 10 months.
He grew up a huge USC football fan. In 2009, when Olson was 12, he formed a special relationship with the Carroll and the Trojans when USC opened its football program to Olson after they found out he was about to have surgery and would likely lose his right eye, rendering him blind.