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Buster Olney | |
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 Olney atCiti Field in 2011 | |
| Born | Robert Stanbury Olney III 1963 or 1964 (age 61–62) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Education | Vanderbilt University |
| Occupation(s) | Sportswriter Sportscaster Author |
| Years active | 1989–present |
Robert Stanbury "Buster"Olney III (born 1963 or 1964)[1][2][3] is an Americansports journalist forESPN,ESPN: The Magazine, andESPN.com. He previously covered theNew York Giants andNew York Yankees forThe New York Times. He is also a regular analyst for the ESPN's television programBaseball Tonight and hosts ESPN'sBaseball Tonight daily podcast.
Olney was born inWashington, D.C., and grew up on a dairy farm inRandolph Center, Vermont.[3] He was educated atNorthfield Mount Hermon School inGill, Massachusetts,[4] andVanderbilt University, where he majored in history.[5] As a child Olney was an avid baseball fan. At age eight, he developed an affinity for theLos Angeles Dodgers after reading a book aboutSandy Koufax. Olney would later attribute his fanship as a reason for his journalistic career.
After graduation, Olney began covering baseball in 1989, as theNashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-ANashville Sounds. While in Nashville, he formed a close relationship withDon Meyer, head coach of the men's basketball program atLipscomb University. He later worked at theSan Diego Union-Tribune andThe Baltimore Sun. He arrived at theNew York Times in 1997 and in his first year won anAssociated Press award.
During one of his first assignments in Nashville, the Sounds hosted theColumbus Clippers who, at the time, were the AAA affiliate of the New York Yankees. Olney almost had a minor confrontation with a Yankee prospect at the time known more for his football play,Deion Sanders. Olney had attempted to do a piece on Sanders, but was blown off. In return, Olney wrote what he called later in his career an unflattering piece on Sanders. Sanders replied to Olney by writing on a baseball "Keep writing like that your whole life and you'll always be a loser."[6]
In2004, Olney publishedThe Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty,ISBN 0-06-051506-6, anonfiction account of theYankees' run of championships in the 1990s.[7] The book also considered why the team lost to theArizona Diamondbacks in the2001 World Series and why it didn't win a championship between 2001 and 2003. Since leaving theTimes, Olney has become a constant on the ESPN family of networks.
In2010, Olney wroteHow Lucky You Can Be: The Story of CoachDon Meyer, an account of how acar crash and cancer diagnosis affected the life of the highly accomplished college basketball coach. In 2013, Olney delivered the May commencement speech atNorthern State University, where Meyer coached until 2010, and was still a member of the faculty until his death on May 18, 2014.[citation needed][8]
Olney resides inYorktown Heights, New York.[3]
Birth Name: Robert Stanbury Olney III.
Olney...was born in Washington, D.C., but as the 46-year-old occasionally points out in his daily column—he grew up on a dairy farm in Randolph Center.
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