Just A Good Ol’Boy… Who Can Coach

The ex-NFL coach who survived a fiery race car crash and hangs out with music stars is teaching a new game at UH

Wednesday - August 31, 2005
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‘You two will never amount to anything.‘He said ‘You never have been in school when the Tigers play an afternoon game. Your sore throats, your absenteeism correlate with the Detroit Tigers in the afternoon. You’ll both end up bums.’”

As high school pals, the guys from Skynyrd were told almost the same thing by their gym teacher. Glanville and Leyland got a bit of revenge by returning as commencement speakers. The musicians just named their band after the far-from-enlightened educator.

“It was a nice payback,” Glanville says.

It may seem that growing up in a town of 4,000 would be difficult for the always energetic coach, but Glanville says it was perfect.

“The town I grew up in was a great place to grow up,” says the former two-sport star. “I guess I was on three (baseball) teams at one time. We were either driving to a game or playing. That’s how you grew up. You had a chance to do that.”

Following his graduation from Northern Michigan University, which also produced future coaches such as Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo, Detroit Lions coach Steve Mariucci and Michigan football coach Lloyd Carr, Glanville moved back into the family business: racing. In fact, if it wasn’t for a badly timed shift he may never have ventured back onto the football field.

Racing the 1961 Ford Skylark that he drove and his brother built, Glanville missed a gear and blew the 425 horsepower engine. “It took a long time for my brother to get over that I missed second gear,” says the man who was voted most likely to die by his classmates. While his brother sulked, the team got a phone call from a local high school. There was a deal to be made. Coaching football in exchange for a new engine. Glanville jumped at the chance to replace his blown power plant. In hindsight, the $4,800 was a trifle sum when compared to the $52,000 he spent on his latest engine.

Speeding along hot asphalt is a tradition for the Glanville clan. “Our family is all racers,” he says. “My brother, my mother’s family, came from a racing background. So we all raced.” And from an early age. Too early, in fact, for the young man who at the age of 14 was trying to see how fast he could push a car down the quarter mile track at the Toledo Airport Speedway. “I won a lot of races with my brother’s driver’s license. They all thought my name was Richard,” laughs Glanville at his ruse.

No question about it, Glanville has the need for speed. He was once quoted as saying football was just a 30 -year break from racing. He has two speed records to his name: one in a 1949 Ford and the other in a 1976 Ford Tourino, both vehicles pulling about 900 horsepower and able to turn a quarter mile in just over eight seconds. He has driven on 107 race tracks. He has engines built for him by Ernie Elliot, brother of NASCAR legend Bill Elliot, and has competed in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series for five years, NASCAR Winston West Series for two seasons, Busch Series three years,ARCA seven years, NHRA five years and Fun Ford for three years.

“The biggest thing I miss here is no NASCAR,” he confesses.

“There is not much racing done here. Where I lived, every day if you went to the Burger King you would talk about football and racing.”

How long does Glanville plan to be involved in the sport?

“I told my wife, we’re all going to die and I’m not going to die in a rocking chair,” he says. “When I go, I’m going with my hair on fire.”

Which was almost the case two years ago when his car became completely engulfed in flames. Severe burns resulted in skin graphs on his leg, arm and neck. He also had an eye socket rebuilt.

Though Glanville last patrolled the sidelines 11 years ago as head coach of the Atlanta Falcons, he doesn’t believe the layoff has hampered his ability to relate to players or to come up with an effective defensive plan. “We did a lot of work with the coaching staff about what we were going to do, but once on the field I felt like I had never left.”

His coworkers agree, saying the energy he brings to practice has even leaked over to the offensive side of the ball. “It’s a blessing for us to have a former NFL head coach here,” says defensive line coach Vance Singletary.

The coach wants everyone on defense to hunt for the ball, and it shows. Viewed from the sideline, there is more hitting going on than in previous years. There is a spring in the players’ steps. More animated displays of emotion. More punishment.

Upon arriving on the Manoa campus, Glanville did the opposite of what most coaches would have done - he ignored what came before.

“I never once went back and watched what they did last year,” he said. “I think if you do that you come in thinking you have the answer when they had problems and you weren’t even here. In all the jobs I had in the NFL I never once looked back and looked at the previous film. I guaranteed the players I would not evaluate them until they were trying to do what we were asking because you don’t know what other people were asking them to do.”

As the newcomer to the program, Glanville is not immersed in the history of UH football, and we’re all waiting to hear him pronounce Kila Kamakawiwo’ole, but he is enjoying the job and the people he works with.

“What hurts talent is selfishness. This staff here is totally unselfish, and it will be that way as long as coach Jones is here,” he says. “I don’t think there is a coach on this staff who has an agenda and is trying to get a resume and move on. And that is very different.”

On the surface it would seem Glanville and his boss are polar opposites. Jerry enjoys the speed of a racetrack, while June the quiet of a golf course. But the new coach says looks are deceiving.

“There is almost no difference at all,” he says. “I don’t know what the differences would be.”

Though football is their most obvious connection, it’s music and humor that keeps it together.

“This job is so tough; at some point you have to have some fun,” says the coach whose sideline comments have become staple of NFL highlight films. “People don’t realize it, but all of the fun I had in pro football, half of that fun, June was the reason we were having it.”

If you have a hard time believing Jones as a campus cutup, realize an important fact. The one thing that Glanville is most famous for, leaving tickets for Elvis, was a June Jones prank.

“It wasn’t a joke; we thought he was alive,” laughs Jones, who no doubt takes pride in giving birth to the legendary tale.

With the season kicking off this Saturday, the entire staff has been holed up in their offices from dawn to way past dusk to find a way to defeat a team the coach says gets better each time they review the tapes.

“They tell me there is a beach around my place somewhere, but I haven’t seen it yet,” says Glanville, a Waikiki resident.

After living his life in the public eye for so many years, Glanville said it’s often hard for many people to determine what tales are true and what has been embellished.

“My life is partly true and partly fiction,” he says. “I’ve read all kinds of things about me in legitimate newspapers, that when I read them I laugh out loud.”

One such tale has him wearing his traditional black outfit as a tribute to country music legend Johnny Cash. The truth is nowhere near that exciting. He did it to stand out among the players and other coaches on the sidelines.

The man who once famously told an official he disagreed with, “This is the NFL, which stands for ‘Not For Long’ if you keep making calls like that,” says he plans on being much quieter. Every reporter covering the team hopes that is not the case. But whether he becomes the defensive savior the Warriors have been looking for, or just helps to get the ship righted before going back to family and racing, he knows exactly who he is. A guy who once got to spend some shower time with Raitt.

“She warms up in the shower, so I got the chance to sing with her in there,” says the coach, explaining that nothing naughty was going on.

In fact, they weren’t alone. The whole band was in there. Not very intimate. But a great story all the same. He’s got a bunch.

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