Panthers’ Greg Olsen Named A Finalist For Walter Payton Man Of The Year Award

CHARLOTTE, NC- Carolina Panthers tight end, Greg Olsen, has been nominated for the NFL’s Walter Payton Man of the Year award for the second year in a row.

Olsen, who just finished his 11th pro season, has put together two initiatives, one to fight breast cancer, the other to help youngsters with a congenital heart defect.

Olsen’s mother is a breast cancer survivor, and in 2009 he founded Receptions for Research: The Greg Olsen Foundation. The Foundation’s “Receiving Hope” focuses on cancer research and education programming.

In early 2013, Greg and his wife Kara founded the HEARTest Yard Fund after a routine examination of their unborn son, T.J., revealed the infant had Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS). It’s a family service program administered in conjunction with Levine Children’s Hospital in Charlotte.

“We meet with the hospital staff and the nurses and doctors and go into these homes,” Olsen explains. “Just to see and hear the families and have them relay the stories about this program and … what the lives of these families would be like without our program. To hear how it is helping their family life and family dynamic is something far beyond what we imagined.

Olsen was named a finalist along side Ravens’ Benjamin Watson and Texans’ J.J. Watt.