For two years he was the steadiest defenseman on the Harvard hockey team, but when junior Mitch Olson returned to school this fall after a year off, he decided not to play the sport and concentrated instead on his academics.

But the door to coach Billy Cleary's office remained open ("I let him know that if he changed his mind and wanted to play later on, that was fine," Cleary says), and one afternoon in late November Olson rejoined the program.

"I had spent so many years of my life playing hockey, and I realized I only had two years left," Olson says. "It was now, or forever hold my peace, so to speak."

His familiar number 25 is now the property of sophomore defenseman Ken Code, but Olson won't worry about finding a new jersey for a while. Until he gets back into game condition--a tough task for someone who hasn't skated in a year and who missed training camp--Olson will practice and play with the junior varsity.

In his first game back, the 7-4 win over Merrimack on December 2, Olson picked up two assists. And he's been having fun ever since.

"I'm having probably one of the best times of my life playing hockey," he says. "It's more fun on this level--more like pond hockey. Everybody is very serious about it, but there's that 1 per cent less pressure."

Playing on the junior varsity--any junior varsity--is a new experience for Olson, who was an all-Minnesota defenseman at Hopkins Lindbergh High in Minnetonka. And even though he's enjoying himself with the jayvees, the idea is to return to the ECAC wars as soon as possible--hopefully, early January.

"I think any athlete taking the game seriously wants to play on the varsity," Olson says. "I mean, you play to win, that's the whole reason for doing it. You want to play with the best."

In his first tour of duty during the 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons, Olson proved he was one of the best. He played in all 51 of Harvard's games in his freshman and sophomore years, and even though he didn't score much (two goals, 10 assists lifetime), his ability on the blueline was one of the few plusses during two otherwise dismal seasons--the 7-18-1 squad his freshman year that finished with the worst record since World War II and an 8-15-3 squad his sophomore season.

It was after that year that Olson elected to take time off from school. He spent the summer and fall helping build a new house for his parents, and in early January left for South America on a botany expedition.

"I went to Colombia with a botanist out of St. Louis University, Al Gentry," Olson says. "I spent a few months doing botany work, collecting and classifying plants, before traveling through Central America and up to the American West."

He then spent the rest of the summer traveling around the West before returning to Cambridge in September. Despite rooming with brother Greg--the squad's leading goal-scorer each of the past two seasons--and forward Greg Britz, Olson thought he could remove hockey from his life and concentrate on his studies. Not so.

"I started to miss the game," he says, and with positive results on his midterms under his belt, Olson decided to give it a shot. Since he hadn't skated competitively for more than 15 months, both he and Cleary decided the J.V. was the place to start.

But it is apparent to anyone who sees him play that Olson retains the talent that got him to the varsity in the first place, so it should be just a matter of time before he makes the jump.

"I'm probably a couple of weeks away physically, but mentally once I start practicing with the varsity I should be all set. I've just lost the mental keenness."

When he gets that back, watch out. "Anyone who saw Mitch play two years ago knows what he can do," Cleary said earlier this season. "He's got talent."