Justin Olson will be in his sixth season as the head coach of the Drury women’s soccer program in 2025. In his short time with the Panthers, he has orchestrated one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of the Great Lakes Valley Conference.
Olson is 55-21-19 in five seasons at Drury and has posted an 38-14-15 record in the GLVC. The program had won just three games in the previous two seasons before Olson’s arrival and went winless in 2018.
During the 2024 season, Olson led the Panthers to a 16-3-4 record and berth in the NCAA-II Tournament. Drury reached the Midwest Regional Championship for the second time in program history. Drury earned the second seed in the GLVC postseason after an 11-1-2 GLVC regular season.
He led Drury to a GLVC Championship in 2021 and the program’s first NCAA-II Tournament bid since 2007 as the Panthers went 16-5-1, 10-3-1 in the league, and to the second round of the national tournament.
Olson was named the GLVC Coach of the Year in 2021, and he and assistant Melissa Kuhar were honored as the NCAA-II Midwest Region Coaching Staff of the Year as well.
23 of his players in the last five years have been named to the All-GLVC team along with seven All-Midwest Region selections. The program has also produced the 2023 GLVC Goalkeeper of the Year, Kaitlin Knetzke, the 2023 GLVC Defender of the Year, Andrea Camargo, the GLVC Offensive Player of the Year in 2021 with Elsa Gonzalez, and the league Freshman of the Year, Tara Simon, also in 2021.
Olson started his tenure with the Panthers on Jan. 10, 2020, and his first year leading the program was shifted to the spring of 2021 after the coronavirus pandemic pushed fall sports to the second semester.
While Olson will enter his sixth year as head coach at Drury in 2025, it will be his 13th season as a collegiate head coach. Before arriving in Springfield, he served as the head coach at Bethany College in Kansas for three years. He led the NAIA program to winning seasons in two of his three seasons there, and in 2018, he guided the team to their most wins in school history, finishing 12-6-2. Olson became the first coach in program history to win 26 games within three seasons and went 27-24-4 in three years at Bethany.
In 2019, Olson had eight players named all-conference in the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Association, and his squad also produced the league's Freshman of the Year, forward Julianna Lopez. His team also set program records in 2018 in goals allowed with 13 and shutouts with 10.
Olson served as head coach at Saint Joseph's in 2016 during the school's final year of operation and was the head coach at Calumet College of St. Joseph's in the NAIA from 2013 to 2015. In 2013, he guided Calumet to their best record in program history as the squad picked up six wins.
In addition to numerous all-conference accolades, his teams have also been successful in the classroom. Olson saw his Bethany team improve from a 2.9 grade point average to a 3.4 GPA during his tenure. His Saint Joseph's squad had a 3.6 team GPA, the second-best mark among teams at the institution that year.
Olson also spent four years as the head coach for the men's soccer team at Calumet from 2012 to 2015 and was the program's assistant coach from 2009 to 2012. He also served as the head coach for NWI United and Three Lions United in northwest Indiana from 2012 to 2017 at the club level. He also was a staff coach for Northwestern University’s Girls Academy from 2016 to 2020.
Olson played collegiate soccer at Southern Indiana from 2005 to 2008 and graduated from USI with a degree in Communications in 2008.
Originally from Portage, Indiana, Olson and his wife, Taryn, reside in southwest Missouri.
Year-By-Year at Drury
| Year |
Record |
GLVC |
Postseason |
| 2024 |
16-3-4 |
11-1-2 |
NCAA-II Tourn., Midwest Finals; GLVC Semifinal |
| 2023 |
12-4-3 |
9-2-2 |
GLVC Semifinals |
| 2022 |
6-3-8 |
3-2-7 |
GLVC Quarterfinals |
| 2021 |
16-5-1 |
10-3-1 |
NCAA-II Tourn., 2nd round; GLVC Champions |
| 20-21 |
5-6-3 |
5-6-3 |
COVID season played in the spring (no NCAA Tourn.) |
| TOTAL |
55-21-19 |
38-14-15 |
GLVC Tourn., (5-3); NCAA-II Tourn. (3-2) |
