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GLANVILLE UNPLUGGED
Dodging death on his goodwill trip to Iraq and Kuwait:
"We got invited to do something we never should have done. We got in old beat-up Toyotas and Volkswagens with the taillights broken out. Our armed guards were the Kurds because the Army couldn't go. We went into the Red Zone at night. The Army takes you into the Green Zone at daytime. And we lost a group, so we had to double back. I'll never forget, when (Hall of Famer) Deacon Jones hit the floor of the car, on the radio, in downtown Baghdad, in the Red Zone, B.B. King was playing, The Thrill is Gone. Deacon Jones said to me, because I sort of set this trip up, 'Jerry Glanville, I'll never talk to you again the rest of our lives.' And I just said, 'If we get home, I'm coaching these kids.' And I'm lucky enough to do that."
Being fulfilled as Hawaii's defensive coordinator:
"I could've stayed there with no problem at all. You don't need to be the head coach to enjoy teaching and coaching. If you were at my desk, I'd show you the emails from players, and then you'd never ask why. A player emailed me and says, 'Coach, because of you, I've started nine games. A 5-9, 210-pound linebacker. Nobody would let me play nine games against the toughest competition, but you saw that in me.' He became a heck of a player. And I get those emails all the time. That's why you're here, you know."
June Jones and Mouse Davis pushing him to take the Portland State job:
"They loved the school so much. It was their love of the school, because I said, 'I don't have any interest in going to Portland State.' And then, Teri Mariani, who was the interim AD -- and I think they were all in cahoots -- they had me meet with the team when I was in town for the interview. June told Teri, 'If he meets with the team, don't worry, he'll take the job.' "
Taking Davis, an offensive assistant to Jones at Hawaii, along in a package deal to Portland State:
"We would get a call while we were in Hawaii, and I would say, 'Mouse, this school wants me to be the head coach, would you come with me?' And do you know what his answer always was? 'If it snows, I don't goes.' And I'd say, 'But it doesn't snow that much.' And he'd say, 'Listen to me, if it snows, I don't goes.' So I said to him, 'Does it snow in Portland?' And he says, 'No.' This sounds like some old Western movie."
Not quite having all the right pieces for his 3-4 Blitz Grits defense or Davis' Run and Shoot offense:
"Not yet. But we fixed that thing in Hawaii pretty quick, and I hope we can fix it here pretty quick. I'm impressed with the attitude and the commitment of the players. It's exactly what I saw when I was in Iraq. It's the same kids. It's the same generation. It's an honor to get a chance to try and teach them what we're trying to get done."
Telephoning family members and friends of the servicemen and women he met on his goodwill trip:
"I learned very quickly, I had to tell them as soon as the phone rang, that there was nothing wrong. That they're okay, and I was with them. They all sit home and worry. And some of the grandparents would say, 'How come you got to come home? And he didn't come home?' I said, 'I wasn't in the Army. I was just over there.' And they said, 'Why didn't you bring them home with you?'
"In fact, an unbelievable story, (former Denver Broncos linebacker) Randy Gradishar was showing pictures in Colorado when we were with the Navy SEALS, and a mother got up and ran down the hallway, grabbed Randy and started crying. In the picture Randy was standing next to her son, who she hadn't heard from in 14 months. So, we all came home different."
Hating to leave behind the troops:
"I'll get emotional. The last kid in the Humvee, I put my hand up against the glass, I can't even tell you. He put his hand up on the other side of the glass. I just said, 'God be with you.' And I could read his lips what he said, and I could watch him drive off into the desert."
Driving throughout Oregon after the spring game with his wife, Brenda, and their now-late dog Cody:
"We went to every spot in the state. When a player's brought in as a recruit, I wanted to say, 'I've been there.' I went to Astoria, and I walked onto the practice field, because there's a player there. We went to up in the northeast corner near St. Joseph's. We went to every part, except the southeast corner. Bend. Sisters. Grants Pass. All the way over to the ocean. There was a dead period, and you're not allowed to talk to players. There I was in my car, and I got on my cellphone, and I called the recruiting coordinator, and I said, 'Is the guy number 74?' 'Yeah, coach. How do you know?' 'Well, I'm looking at him. He's got good size. And he can move.' So, when we get him on a visit I can say, 'I've been there!' "
Whether he'll leave tickets for Elvis to the Portland State games:
"No, I'm having a hard enough time getting in myself. We're at the stage where it's hard to get anything free. What's kind of unique, our road games now are selling out. I tell the players what a great honor we're going to have, that people are actually buying tickets in other places. We're opening up in Lake Charles, La., and the AD says there's so much excitement about us rolling in there. So, it's going to be fun."
Designing the new Vikings' uniforms:
"Well, I had designed the uniforms with Rick McReynolds, the equipment man. We'd designed the uniforms and sent them in to be made. Then, we heard from Nike that they wanted to show us what they had designed for us. I told Rick, 'I have no interest. Tell them we have ours all done. We like it. We're on top of this.' Then, Chris Crawford, who played for Portland State and works for Nike, says, 'As an all-American quarterback, can we come see you?' Well, I think you owe that to somebody who played here. They came in and they showed 'em to me. They had them all on these drawing boards, side by side. I said, 'You know what, I still like mine. I'm going to call in the players and let them decide.' And I loved my helmets -- they have the old Minnesota Vikings horns on them. I brought in all the players, and my uniforms never got one vote. Not one. So, I said, 'The bottom line, Nike knows what they're doing.' When they looked at my helmets, what do these 19-year-old kids say? 'Old school.' "
By Jill Lieber Steeg
By Jill Lieber Steeg, USA TODAY
Jerry Glanville can pinpoint the instant his life changed forever.
In March 2004, on a morale-building trip to Iraq and Kuwait set up by the NFL Alumni Association, he was standing in the last latrine along the Highway of Death when a sentence scribbled on the wall hit him right between the eyes:
"I'd rather live a day with the lions than a thousand years with the lambs."
— The American Soldier
"I thought, 'Wow, you've got to coach these kids,' " says Glanville, who dressed in full body armor, rode atop gun-mounted Humvee assault vehicles and met thousands of troops. "That's what's inside of them. They don't question the mission, just, 'Let's go get it done.' "
A few weeks later, then 11 years after retiring from coaching in the NFL and college, Glanville gave up his prosperous, fun-filled gigs as a TV analyst for pro football and stock car driver on the Automobile Racing Club of America circuit to become the defensive coordinator at the University of Hawaii. And in February he accepted the job as head coach of Division I-AA Portland (Ore.) State of the Big Sky Conference.
Saturday, Glanville will lead his No. 13-ranked Vikings in their season opener at No. 10 McNeese State in Lake Charles, La. To borrow his favorite phrase, you're going to love this: The man who dressed in black from head to toe as head coach of the Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons and left tickets for Elvis Presley at stadium windows throughout the NFL has butterflies in his stomach.
That's right, the guy who once barreled into a wall in his race car, which exploded into flames for five minutes, and lived to tell about it — "That's why I don't like French fries," he says — is nervous.
But raring to go.
"It doesn't matter what team you're with, the opener's different," says Glanville, who has just five returning starters on offense and four on defense. (His predecessor, Tim Walsh, left after a 90-68 record in 14 seasons to become offensive coordinator at Army.) "You just hope everybody gets going 100 mph in a hurry."
But you can bet Glanville, 65, will be moving faster than that. Try warp speed:
•At his desk, where he worked the phones this spring and persuaded Pacific-10 schools Washington State, Oregon State and Arizona State to add Portland State to their future schedules.
•On the field, where he installed the "Gritz Blitz" defense, his attacking, fly-to-the-ball, 3-4 scheme. It complements the high-scoring, pass-happy Run and Shoot offense created by former Portland State head coach Darrell (Mouse) Davis, his 74-year-old offensive coordinator.
•In the community, where Glanville has become a folk hero. He drums up support for Portland State by giving four speeches a day to local companies, civic groups and potential donors, by making good on dinners with himself that he auctions off at charity events and by circling restaurants after he has eaten to introduce himself and shake everybody's hand.
"I'm surprised by this job every third day," says Glanville, expected to be in his customary black attire on the sidelines. "I have a yellow sticky pad on my desk, where I write a note to myself every day. It says, 'COACH THE FOOTBALL TEAM.' You have to write that every day, because this is a job, unlike Ohio State or LSU, that you've got to go do a lot of things."
The Glanville whirlwind
At times, Glanville gets so revved up he loses himself in his whirlwind.
At a Class AAA Portland Beavers game, Glanville put the squeeze on a woman to buy Vikings season tickets. Scott Herrin, the school's associate athletics director for marketing and sales, kept trying to get his attention.
"I said, 'Wait a minute, Scott, I think I've got 'em sold,' " Glanville says. "Scott says, 'Coach!' And I said, 'What?' And he says, 'That's my wife!' How crazy is that?"
He gets to the office by 5 a.m. and stays until well past midnight. If he's not dreaming up ways to raise $50,000 for his "I Feed a Portland State Viking" training table program, he's designing uniforms with Nike.
"A few days ago, for the first time ever, I beat Mouse to work," Glanville says of his comic sidekick. "I never beat him all the time we coached together at Hawaii, and I never beat him all the while we've been here. I phoned him and said, 'Mouse, I'm going to hold a press conference.' "
Davis says: "People ask us all the time, how do you guys do it? You're 74, he's 65. Where do you get all your energy? I tell 'em, 'Lots of sex.' "
The Vikings last made the playoffs in 2000, but season ticket sales are through the roof. Almost 4,000 have been sold, with all 24 suites taken. Last year, only 944 were purchased and 10 suites went unsold. More than 20 new corporate partners have come on board.
"Jerry's generated more buzz than I'd ever imagined, and it has been sustained," says Teri Mariani, who hired Glanville when she was the school's interim athletics director and is now special assistant to the AD. "Portland State, not just the athletic department but the entire university, has finally gotten the exposure it deserves."
Torre Chisholm, the current athletics director, adds: "Two million people live in Portland. Eighty thousand are Portland State alumni or parents. Four thousand are employees of the university. The problem is, there hasn't been a reason for people to talk about how they're connected to the school. With Jerry here, they do."
Unconventional coach finds perfect fit
On the surface, everything about this job seems as unconventional as Glanville himself.
He got hired after singing an Albert King blues song, Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven, with Dan Bernstine, then the school's president.
He negotiated his contract on a paper tablecloth over dinner with Mariani at Jake's Grill. Mariani wrote the terms twice — $165,000 a year for Glanville, plus $225,000 in increases to the football budget over the next four years, for additional scholarships and recruiting money and better salaries for assistant coaches. Then she ripped the tablecloth in half, and they shook hands.
It's the perfect place for Glanville and his wife, Brenda, who never moved to Hawaii from their Atlanta home because their elderly schnauzer, Cody, would not have survived the trip.
They live in an apartment in the city's Pearl District, and the streetcar runs underneath their window.
"We can walk to 60 restaurants," Glanville says. "We can be at Jimmy Mak's listening to the blues at 10 o'clock, walk home and be in bed by 10:30. It's a really great area to live. And the people here have been so nice to us. I just hope we can repay everybody by winning some games."
Glanville knows he wouldn't be here if not for Hawaii head coach June Jones, a former quarterback at Portland State, and Davis. Both campaigned on his behalf. He also knows he wouldn't be the coach he is today if he hadn't visited the troops in Iraq.
He wrote all their names in his diary, with a phone number of a family member or a close friend. Six weeks after he returned to the States, he spent his weekends in his basement, making what he says were 5,500 phone calls.
"I think I'm doing my best coaching job because I have more passion for the individual. I know what's inside of them," he says. "Being with these kids in Iraq, it was all about the mission. No griping, no complaining.
"I ended up coaching the same kids in Hawaii, and I'm coaching the same identical kids here. And the kid next door, in baggy jeans, earrings and the floppy shirt hanging out, has more passion, more love for this country than anybody ever knows. The same kids that you say, 'They'll never amount to anything.' Well, he is something.
"Why do you coach now?" Glanville asks. "I've got three kids since training camp started that are 10 times better than they were in the spring. You just watch them grow, and that's the fun of it. You don't get that unless you're the college professor yourself. You don't get that televising the game. You only get that coaching the game."
