Columbus High’s Rusty Oliver proud of 250th win, but hungry for more

It was a classic example of Columbus girls soccer coach Rusty Oliver’s coaching style.

His team had just finished off a 5-1 victory at Northside on Wednesday, clinching its fifth straight region title and making it 250 career wins for the head coach.

The team technically didn’t allow a goal the entire game, with the Lady Patriots’ lone tally coming on an own goal in the 80th and final minute. It had scored four times in the second half, turning a close 1-0 affair into a no-doubter within 17-minute span.

Still, the final minute of the contest drew the ire of the 17-year veteran coach.

“We cannot play 79 good minutes of soccer and achieve our goals this year,” he said forcefully. “We have to play 80 great minutes.”

And it’s that mentality, more than anything, that has helped Oliver reach the 250-win milestone.

Because there are no breaks for Columbus. After clinching the region title on Wednesday, the team looks forward to a seven-game stretch in which it plays teams with a combined 15 state championships between them.

Its two losses this year are to Class 5A No. 1 McIntosh and Class 4A No. 5 Woodward Academy.

The remaining teams on their schedule are Class 2A No. 1 Lovett, Class 4A No. 2 Marist, Class 6A No. 7 Parkview, Allatoona, East Coweta, Class 5A No. 5 Northgate and Class 3A No. 4 Blessed Trinity. Neither Allatoona nor East Coweta are ranked, but they’re a combined 23-4 this season.

“There are teams that would be happy with a region championship,” Oliver said. “That’s not us. There are no breaks. No breaks at all.”

He could have reached the 250-win plateau sooner, Oliver said, but that would have meant padding the schedule with easier opponents, something he said would not have served the program well.

“We would not be ranked No. 3 in the state and contending for a state title year in and year out if we padded our schedule,” he said. “It’s because we play that hard schedule. It’s because we take five or six or seven or eight lumps every year.”

Of course, Oliver didn’t always have much success in scheduling the tougher opponents. When he first took over the Lady Blue Devils program 17 years ago, it was little more than an activity at the school. Few people on staff at the school wanted to take on the challenge and fewer still were all that worried about whether it fielded a successful team or not.

“It was sort of an abandoned child,” Oliver said.

And so, when he’d call the top programs in the state to try to schedule games, he wouldn’t get a call back.

“I couldn’t even get those coaches to answer me,” he said.

It took making the state tournament, winning games in the tournament and building some level of credibility. Now, the team is ranked No. 3 in the state and one of the top contenders for the Class 5A state championship.

Oliver said he’s proud to know that he’s played a part in building this program from the ground up.

“To kind of have planted the seeds and watch it grow over these years,” he said.

Former Columbus player and current assistant Madison See, who graduated in 2012 and played four years at Davidson College, said that the work Oliver puts in behind the scenes has been instrumental.

“When people aren’t watching, he’s watching film, he’s scouting teams,” she said. “The work that goes in behind the scenes is tremendous. It says a lot about how he’s built this program.”

And that’s why Oliver isn’t shy about admitting that the 250th win was a significant one to him. He’s a numbers guy, he said, and he’s had his eye on that milestone for awhile.

“I jumped in with both feet and I put my heart and soul into this for 17 years now,” he said. “I’ve sacrificed hours away from my family. It takes a lot of work. It’s really an investment. There’s more to it than just standing on the sidelines and yelling. I’m just really proud that, one, I’ve been here this long and, two, that we’ve accomplished so much.”

This story was originally published March 30, 2016 at 8:51 PM with the headline "Columbus High’s Rusty Oliver proud of 250th win, but hungry for more."