Reading Pablo Maurer’s recent profile of Ben Olsen (https://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/sports/article/21025518/ben-olsen-faces-great-expectations-and-canvases ) increased my admiration for him as both coach and as a person. And it started me to thinking: what does a longer-term future hold for Ben Olsen?

Maybe he’ll be the Sir Alex Ferguson of DC United, coaching our beloved club for 26 years. If so, he would still be only in his mid-50s when he retired.

Olsen himself won’t speculate about life after DC United. "I go through the what-ifs," Olsen reflects. "If I got fired tomorrow, would I be calling my agent like ‘Hey, get me back in a job next year, find me a job, I want interviews’? No. I wouldn’t."

So I’ll speculate for him. Coach, I think that you’re a natural to be an outstanding Mayor of Washington, DC.

I say this having some experience myself with "mayoring" (Albuquerque, New Mexico) and having a modest track record as an early political talent scout (e.g. President Jimmy Carter, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf). Three overall points:

Deep DC Roots

First, as Pablo Maurer points out "[Olsen] is also a local celebrity, really the only professional coach of a D.C. team who has embedded himself deeply in the District itself, lending support to local charities and championing D.C. voting rights."

For a decade Olsen and his wife Megan have lived in a spacious rowhouse in the Shaw neighborhood, raising their three children Ruby (10), Oscar (7) and Frankie (4). "I certainly didn’t buy this house out of speculation. I thought it was a great, diverse neighborhood, I thought it had a great little park behind it. If we were going to raise a family, it was going to be an interesting place to lay down roots."

Second, Olsen is also an experienced, personable, upbeat public speaker and disciplined communicator. He stays on message (but for some outbursts at MLS refereeing on the sideline). He would be an excellent campaigner.

Third, Olsen knows what he doesn’t know. He would have the good sense to serve an apprenticeship in his new field, probably as a member of the DC Council representing either Ward 2 (where he lives) or the whole District in one of the four at-large seats. Being mayor of Washington, DC is a big and complex job – no place for on-the-job training.

The USA’s 38th Biggest Public CEO

And make no mistake. Being mayor of the Nation’s Capital is both a big and unique job as the District of Columbia is a municipality, a county, and a state (with all state functions if not a state’s sovereignty) rolled into one. For FY 2019 the District’s operating budget is $14.6 billion to which can be added a capital improvements budget of $1.7 billion. That’s larger than 16 states and all local governments except New York City and Los Angeles County. Plus DC government has 36,175 employees (including 10,777 in the DC Public Schools).

Though DC’s scale is daunting, a chief executive of an organization of any scale must make the same basic decisions. DC government just adds a lot more 0’s behind those numbers. Olsen’s training as a professional soccer coach develops skills that are essential to being an effective mayor.

• Making key personnel decisions: Few organizations call upon their top executive to make as many key personnel decisions as a professional sports team manager must make constantly. Among those 36,000 plus District government employees, Mayor Olsen’s "team" would really be about 30-35 people: his city administrator, chief financial officer, a half dozen deputy mayors, and about two dozen department heads and key mayoral aides. He must meld them into an effective team. As Pablo Maurer reports, "[Olsen] is still widely perceived as a ‘player’s coach,’ a manager who’s learned to bring the best out of his men." Being a "player’s coach" also means being upfront and honest with your subordinates; Olsen certainly knows how to demote or dismiss those who don’t meet expectations.

• Promoting diversity: As both player and coach Olsen has worked within an increasingly diverse world – by race, by ethnicity, by religion, by national origin, by sexual orientation. There’s never been a hint of any sort of bias or discrimination leveled against Olsen. It’s true that as player and coach he has had exclusively masculine teammates and players, but I believe that his openness and inclusiveness extends to women as well.

• Thinking tactically: A political leader’s greatest skill is being able to put yourself in other people’s shoes to figure out what motivates them and to make them allies around a common goal or to defeat them as opponents. Olsen has to do that every week. Again, per Maurer’s profile: "every week you could play a Patrick Vieira, and then a Scandinavian team, and then a Tata Martino, an Argentine. It’s a whole different animal. You have an Italian, Euro-style counter-attack team [Montreal] coming in this weekend. And then you’ll play Columbus, kind of a Dutch influence, stretch it out at all costs, and the next game you’ll get the Red Bulls—they just split the field in half and just slam it down your throat."

• Planning strategically: Living through some hard times, Olsen has clearly been part of a DC United strategy regarding how to move up to a new level. The new stadium at Buzzard Point. New training facilities and a USL team in Loudoun County. A higher level of talent. ""I’m proud of the way we’re playing right now. I want people to be entertained, and now I think for the first time I have some of the guns. You can’t just take this and create that. You need THIS to create THAT."

• Having a thick skin: Interspersed with modest successes, Olsen’s has had some dreadful seasons (2010, 2013, 2017, even the first half of 2018) during which the criticism has been intense. He’s never lost his team or his composure. (Well, maybe a touch of composure this past May.) As mayor, if you want to achieve your goal of creating a better city for everyone, you cannot afford to lash back at city council members, members of Congress, critical press, angry, aggrieved fans (er, citizens). In fact, you need to keep your eyes, ears, and mind open. Sometimes critics may just be right.

Keeping Life in Perspective

Finally, there were two personal notes in Maurer’s profile that gave me great hope for Olsen as our future mayor. Both display a sense of proportion.

Time for Family

First, being a big-time sports coach or mayor can become an all-consuming job. Yet your children only come through your life once. Olsen clearly works hard to carve out time to be a good husband and dad. For example, Maurer reports that "his wife Megan teaches health and physical education in the area, so for the time being, Olsen has the pleasure of depositing his kids at school on his way to work every morning. When time allows, he can also pick them up, as he’s done today."

But he worries about short-changing his family. "I think people only have so much energy, and if work takes away most of it, you come home and you’re less patient with the kids; reading a book at night is just a little bit harder. … It’s just easier to come home and bug out and watch TV and not play a board game with them. I feel like they’re short-changed on that. Certainly my wife is as well."

Well, Coach Olsen, I’ve got good news for Mayor Olsen. As mayor, if you put the right team in place, you’ll be at the very pinnacle of a very professional, competent administration. You can literally choose what issues you’re going to work on and, most importantly, when. You can delegate the rest. And you can decide just how much time you’re going to devote to being mayor. You can tell your scheduler "family comes first" and all of your mayoral duties can be scheduled around Ruby’s gymnastic meets, and Oscar’s band concerts and Frankie’s youth soccer matches and the shows that Megan wants to take in at the Arena Stage and the Kennedy Center. When you find yourself working extra-long hours (during budget preparation times, for example), you can take a week or two of compensatory vacation afterwards to take the family on that never-to-be-forgotten trip. You can control the job and not let the job control you – probably more so than as a coach.

Time for Yourself

Second, Maurer’s profile revealed Ben Olsen as a serious artist, painting in his ample space in nearby O Street Studio. "This place is Olsen’s third home, and maybe his one true escape. His work as a coach is all-consuming; his family life gobbles up the little time that remains. On rare occasions, like today—an off-day for the club—he can carve out an hour or two to enter his studio, where he paints."

As mayor, you needn’t be limited to "on rare occasions … carv[ing] out an hour or two to enter [your studio]." Beyond work and family, you ought to budget regular time just for yourself … for whatever recharges your batteries (painting in your case).

Why? Well, I’ve never been impressed with reports of presidents or governors or mayors that work from pre-dawn to post-midnight, consumed with the details of their responsibilities. (In most instances, they’re really trying to do the jobs of their subordinates.) As a citizen I want you to be fresh and clear thinking when called upon to make a decision which only a mayor can make.

And I want you to have the energy to inspire our entire community to fulfill the ancient Athenian oath of office: "We will transmit this city not only not less, but greater, better and more beautiful than it was."