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Glanville works up appetite for funds
The PSU football coach is asking for donations for a training table to help keep his players fed
Thursday, August 09, 2007
JIM BESEDA
The Oregonian
Jerry Glanville was an assistant coach at Georgia Tech in the late 1960s and early '70s, and the way he remembers it, the Yellow Jackets' football program had unlimited resources.
"Guess what our budget was at Georgia Tech?" Glanville said. "We had no budget. We did whatever we wanted to do."
That's not even close to being the case at Portland State, an NCAA Division I-AA (or Football Championship Subdivision) program.
Without a major television contract to provide operating revenue and with the rising cost of tuition, student housing, travel and almost every other expense connected to college athletics -- regardless of the level -- the Vikings have to watch every dollar.
Glanville's arrival has revitalized interest in Portland State's football program and helped the Vikings' athletic department tap into a number of new revenue streams. But that doesn't mean Glanville has carte blanche.
He still must get the athletic director's OK on most things.
Sometimes there is money to spend. Sometimes there isn't. And when there isn't, Glanville still can get what he wants if he's willing to go out and raise the money on his own.
Take the "I Feed A Viking Club," for instance.
Glanville has put a new twist on a long-standing PSU donor program, hoping to raise funding for a training table -- a program that provides planned meals three times a day for athletes in training -- that is more extensive than anything the Vikings have enjoyed in recent years.
"If you don't have a training table," Glanville said, "your 280-pound defensive tackle ends up about 260 when you're trying to win the ninth game, because they don't eat like they would if they had a training table."
The Vikings' ninth game this season is at Big Sky Conference favorite Montana -- a game that will likely influence this season's league championship.
"We want these players to still be big when they're playing in Missoula," Glanville said.
PSU athletic director Torre Chisholm said perhaps the best thing about Glanville's project is that he "not only has embraced the need to deal with the football program, but he also looks at this as something that we should be doing for all our athletes.
"In a larger context, Jerry's goal is to eventually be able to set this up for at least all the fall sports. That's a little different. A lot of times you have coaches who worry about themselves and their programs only. So it's neat that he sees it more from a global perspective."
Glanville said he and PSU offensive coordinator Darrel "Mouse" Davis learned a hard lesson about players and their in-season diets two years ago as assistants at Hawaii. The Rainbow Warriors went to Wisconsin and lost 41-24 in the next to last game of the season -- and before Hawaii implemented a more extensive training table the next season.
"We were warming up pre-game, and Mouse says, 'When Wisconsin comes out, don't look,' " Glanville said. "I said, 'Moooouse . . . ' And he goes, 'Don't look.' Well, when anybody tells you that, you've got to look.
"So then I felt the stadium shake and I look and . . . holy cow, they were humongous. All of a sudden the scale was no longer balanced. Wisconsin was still large. It wasn't fair. They had been eating and we hadn't."
Glanville would like to avoid a similar situation with the Vikings, but he said he needs help. He's asking anybody who would like to contribute to write him a check for at least $250 or as much as $5,000 toward the cause.
It is a violation of NCAA rules for a booster to directly provide an athlete with meals or meal money. Glanville's idea allows supporters to make a donation to the football program, which he then earmarks for the training table.
"Feed a Viking" donors receive a window sticker that features the school's new spear logo and reads: "I FED A PORTLAND STATE VIKING!"
"I want it on your car's back window," Glanville said. "When someone pulls up real close behind you, they can't see a bumper sticker. I want people to be able to see, 'I Feed A Viking.'
"This will shock some people. I've never had anybody that I've talked to who ever said, 'No.' The people in the city have supported us probably more than anybody at the school thought possible. And I'm not talking about just Portland State alumni. Those people have been tremendous to me. But I'm talking about people that have never set foot on this campus who are helping our program, people that are interested in trying to help it be successful. That's what makes the job fun."
Cody Feakin, the Vikings' 6-foot-6, 295-pound senior right tackle, said the menu at mealtimes hasn't changed significantly since last season. The biggest difference from a year ago is that the team eats after practice instead of before.
"Last season, a lot of guys would eat, come out and throw up, or they wouldn't eat as much," Feakin said. "What will probably help me and other guys maintain or gain weight is practicing in the morning and then eating right after practice. We get back everything we lost right away.
"It's a good thing for me, because it's all I can eat, and that helps me keep my weight up."
Notes:
The Vikings turned down an opportunity to move the starting time of the Sept. 1 opener against McNeese State in Lake Charles, La., from an 8 p.m. Eastern start to an afternoon start that would have allowed the game to be televised nationally. "Television cannot make me bring those kids out there at noon," Glanville said. "It would be like playing in a swimming pool. That's how much you'd sweat." . . .
Glanville has been impressed with the work of his younger quarterbacks, including freshman Connor Kavanaugh. "Nobody told me Kavanaugh was left-handed," he said. "I was kind shocked. I thought, 'Man, I wonder if he can throw that well right-handed, too?' " . . . The Vikings, who sold 944 season tickets last season, said Wednesday morning that they had sold 2,676, according to marketing director Scott Herron.
Jim Beseda: 503-221-8380; [email protected]
The PSU football coach is asking for donations for a training table to help keep his players fed
Thursday, August 09, 2007
JIM BESEDA
The Oregonian
Jerry Glanville was an assistant coach at Georgia Tech in the late 1960s and early '70s, and the way he remembers it, the Yellow Jackets' football program had unlimited resources.
"Guess what our budget was at Georgia Tech?" Glanville said. "We had no budget. We did whatever we wanted to do."
That's not even close to being the case at Portland State, an NCAA Division I-AA (or Football Championship Subdivision) program.
Without a major television contract to provide operating revenue and with the rising cost of tuition, student housing, travel and almost every other expense connected to college athletics -- regardless of the level -- the Vikings have to watch every dollar.
Glanville's arrival has revitalized interest in Portland State's football program and helped the Vikings' athletic department tap into a number of new revenue streams. But that doesn't mean Glanville has carte blanche.
He still must get the athletic director's OK on most things.
Sometimes there is money to spend. Sometimes there isn't. And when there isn't, Glanville still can get what he wants if he's willing to go out and raise the money on his own.
Take the "I Feed A Viking Club," for instance.
Glanville has put a new twist on a long-standing PSU donor program, hoping to raise funding for a training table -- a program that provides planned meals three times a day for athletes in training -- that is more extensive than anything the Vikings have enjoyed in recent years.
"If you don't have a training table," Glanville said, "your 280-pound defensive tackle ends up about 260 when you're trying to win the ninth game, because they don't eat like they would if they had a training table."
The Vikings' ninth game this season is at Big Sky Conference favorite Montana -- a game that will likely influence this season's league championship.
"We want these players to still be big when they're playing in Missoula," Glanville said.
PSU athletic director Torre Chisholm said perhaps the best thing about Glanville's project is that he "not only has embraced the need to deal with the football program, but he also looks at this as something that we should be doing for all our athletes.
"In a larger context, Jerry's goal is to eventually be able to set this up for at least all the fall sports. That's a little different. A lot of times you have coaches who worry about themselves and their programs only. So it's neat that he sees it more from a global perspective."
Glanville said he and PSU offensive coordinator Darrel "Mouse" Davis learned a hard lesson about players and their in-season diets two years ago as assistants at Hawaii. The Rainbow Warriors went to Wisconsin and lost 41-24 in the next to last game of the season -- and before Hawaii implemented a more extensive training table the next season.
"We were warming up pre-game, and Mouse says, 'When Wisconsin comes out, don't look,' " Glanville said. "I said, 'Moooouse . . . ' And he goes, 'Don't look.' Well, when anybody tells you that, you've got to look.
"So then I felt the stadium shake and I look and . . . holy cow, they were humongous. All of a sudden the scale was no longer balanced. Wisconsin was still large. It wasn't fair. They had been eating and we hadn't."
Glanville would like to avoid a similar situation with the Vikings, but he said he needs help. He's asking anybody who would like to contribute to write him a check for at least $250 or as much as $5,000 toward the cause.
It is a violation of NCAA rules for a booster to directly provide an athlete with meals or meal money. Glanville's idea allows supporters to make a donation to the football program, which he then earmarks for the training table.
"Feed a Viking" donors receive a window sticker that features the school's new spear logo and reads: "I FED A PORTLAND STATE VIKING!"
"I want it on your car's back window," Glanville said. "When someone pulls up real close behind you, they can't see a bumper sticker. I want people to be able to see, 'I Feed A Viking.'
"This will shock some people. I've never had anybody that I've talked to who ever said, 'No.' The people in the city have supported us probably more than anybody at the school thought possible. And I'm not talking about just Portland State alumni. Those people have been tremendous to me. But I'm talking about people that have never set foot on this campus who are helping our program, people that are interested in trying to help it be successful. That's what makes the job fun."
Cody Feakin, the Vikings' 6-foot-6, 295-pound senior right tackle, said the menu at mealtimes hasn't changed significantly since last season. The biggest difference from a year ago is that the team eats after practice instead of before.
"Last season, a lot of guys would eat, come out and throw up, or they wouldn't eat as much," Feakin said. "What will probably help me and other guys maintain or gain weight is practicing in the morning and then eating right after practice. We get back everything we lost right away.
"It's a good thing for me, because it's all I can eat, and that helps me keep my weight up."
Notes:
The Vikings turned down an opportunity to move the starting time of the Sept. 1 opener against McNeese State in Lake Charles, La., from an 8 p.m. Eastern start to an afternoon start that would have allowed the game to be televised nationally. "Television cannot make me bring those kids out there at noon," Glanville said. "It would be like playing in a swimming pool. That's how much you'd sweat." . . .
Glanville has been impressed with the work of his younger quarterbacks, including freshman Connor Kavanaugh. "Nobody told me Kavanaugh was left-handed," he said. "I was kind shocked. I thought, 'Man, I wonder if he can throw that well right-handed, too?' " . . . The Vikings, who sold 944 season tickets last season, said Wednesday morning that they had sold 2,676, according to marketing director Scott Herron.
Jim Beseda: 503-221-8380; [email protected]
