A former WSC football wide-out has found a new sport and a new challenge.

Junior Bennie Olson decided this past summer that he wasn’t happy and needed a change. His love for the game of football started to dwindle.

Olson, a graduate of Millard South High School in Omaha, has been in or around sports his whole life. He knew once his football days were over he would need to find another sport. That is when he turned to mixed martial arts (MMA).

“I wanted to stay in sports and be busy, but I didn’t want to play football anymore. Just kind of out of the blue, I decided MMA would keep me in shape,” Olson said.

Tammy Olson was behind her son the second he told her what he wanted to do. She got in contact with Legacy Martial Arts in Oma­ha so her son could start training.

“I started going to Omaha ev­ery weekend so I could train at Legacy,” Olson said. “My first day they told me about a fight that was a month away on Sept. 18 in Wayne. I was happy it was so close to give me the motivation to train that much harder to be ready.”

Olson was in football shape, which isn’t how you want to be to fight MMA. He weighed 185 pounds when he started training. Olson’s trainers wanted him at the 170 weight division, so he started cutting the pounds.

Eating right was a big step to losing the weight. Olson worked at McDonalds over the summer and didn’t always eat the healthiest of foods. He started eating mainly a chicken and rice diet and ate smaller portion sizes. This helped him shed the pounds, and the night of the fight he weighed 169.5 pounds.

The week leading up to the fight he didn’t get much sleep. Olson said he was nervous for the fight and would lie in bed playing scenarios of the fight in his head.

Finally, the night of the fight had arrived. Not knowing if he had trained hard enough or long enough, Olson was nervous step­ping into the ring. Walking out and seeing one whole section of the gym filled with friends and family really helped him calm down when he stepped into the cage.

In the first round, Olson took care of opponent Chandler Moen by taking him down and working his ground and pound game. The fight could have been stopped but Moen was saved by the bell.

In the second round Olson start­ed to work in leg kicks, which started to form a welt on Moen’s leg. Again, Olson took him down working his ground game. Before the third round began, Moen’s corner threw in the towel.

Olson won by corner stoppage.

“I was so tired after the fight. If it went to the third round, I don’t know if I would have made it,” Olson said with a chuckle. “I will train harder and be more condi­tioned for my next fight.”

Olson plans to fight in the next event in Wayne in November.