University of Minnesota Athletics
Deborah Olson - M Club Hall of Fame
Deborah Olson
Benefactor
HOF Class of 2000
A former Carleton College volleyball and softball student-athlete, Deborah Olson has given more than $1 million to the University of Minnesota Women’s Athletics Department, and specifically its soccer program.
After endowing one scholarship in the name of her mother, the late Elizabeth Lyle Robbie, she gave the women’s department an additional $900,000 in 1998 for construction of a new soccer facility, also named for Robbie, and another scholarship for a Minnesota soccer player.
Robbie became the first female owner of a professional sports franchise in the United States when she purchased the Miami Toros soccer team in the mid-1970s. The Toros moved to Fort Lauderdale, FL, and then to the Twin Cities where they became the Minnesota Strikers in 1983, disbanding in 1988.
Olson became actively involved in Minnesota women’s athletics issues as a President’s Club member and on many special events committees, including the Advisory Council and the Ice Hockey Task Force.