The N.F.L. League is back in business, and its 30 coaches are scrambling to cram months of preparation into a couple of weeks. There are some underemployed football coaches out there, but Jerry Glanville, though idle, had the pedal to the metal in the hills of north Georgia.
“Can you hear me?” Glanville said by cellphone, yelling to be heard over the snarling engine of his 1984 Thunderbird. “I’m driving around the mountains. If I lose you, call right back. I have to go drop this car off and pick up another.”
Glanville’s career has been a wild ride. In a bit more than eight seasons as an N.F.L. head coach, his record was 63-73. He endorsed an aggressive style of play and was known for his candor. He left the N.F.L. in 1993 and became a television commentator while pursuing a career racing trucks and cars in Nascar.
“I think when I ran for Rookie of the Year, I was 54, and Jeff Gordon was 18 at the same time, and I was battling him!” he said. “Now that’s fun!”
Glanville, 69, spent the last five years coaching college football, first as defensive coordinator at Hawaii, then as the coach at Portland State. In March, Glanville was hired as the coach and general manager of the Hartford Colonials in the nascent United Football League. Last week, the U.F.L. announced it was delaying the start of the season until mid-September to address financial issues. Glanville returned to his home in Georgia to wait for the season to begin.
How has the U.F.L. postponing the start of its season affected you?
I’m funny, because you can disappoint me but not discourage me. So I’m disappointed, but I’m not discouraged. I hope it all works out.
When the U.F.L. hired you, you said you might have the best job in America.
I think it’s a throwback to 1974, when I was with Detroit. The players aren’t spoiled, everybody’s together. We screwed the game up with bonuses based on nothing having to do with team wins. In the U.F.L., you don’t have any of that. The No. 1 goal? Win the game. What a concept that is, huh? You’re gonna hear a lot of racket, I’m trying to start up one of my racecars. You don’t care, do you?
No, that’s fine.
[Sound of an engine cranking, not turning over] They don’t like to start. [Sound of an engine cranking, not turning over.] Wow, got some power, huh? [Sound of engine cranking, this time roaring to life; Glanville screams over the noise.] That’s what I’m talking about! I’m gonna back out of the garage. It’s a drag car that I run. It’s an ‘84 Thunderbird, with a 351 Cleveland. Whoo baby! You think I’m crazy, don’t you? But the reason I said I thought I had the best job is, we have a great owner. And the owner wants me to coach the football team. There’s no politics, which I was never any good at. There’s no kissing butt. You like the sound of the car?
It sounds good on my cellphone.
You got 525 horsepower, 555 pounds of torque. It’s awesome.
Was your racing career dangerous?
Yeah, you get in accidents every other year or so, get knocked around a little bit. I got burned up, got caught in a fire, got skin grafts. Everybody said, “Oh, after that fire, you’ll never drive the same.” The greatest thing is they did a skin graft — on my right arm, from my shoulder to my elbow, all the skin is from my right leg. But the way the skin graft came out, the skin graft looks like the state of Texas. And I look at that and I think, How sweet is that? I got the state of Texas on my arm! It’s kind of funny, a guy called me and he goes, “How does that affect you, now that you’ve got your legs up on your arms?” I go, “I get down on all fours, I can run like a horse. I’m faster than ever!”
There was a story that when you were coaching in the N.F.L., you would leave tickets for Elvis before every game. Was that true?
Don’t screw up a good story with facts. We were playing the New England Patriots in a spring game. June Jones and I were riding to work in a pickup truck, and on the radio they said Elvis was spotted at a Burger King in Michigan. And June says, “Isn’t the halftime show dedicated to Elvis at our game?” I said, “Yeah.” He goes, “Well hell, we ought to leave him a ticket.” So we left him a ticket. Now if you get on the Internet, you’ll see that I left him a ticket for every game I coached in Atlanta. We never left a ticket for anyone in Atlanta, ever. But why ruin that story?
Do you ever Google yourself?
I used to have a thing on my computer, you could type in a “Jerry Glanville” alert. So if somebody wrote something new, it would pop up. And I was at home the whole time. It would give me three one day, two the next day, then seven. I’d go, “You gotta be kidding.” One I got mad at. They had a deal, they were voting whether I was alive or not. I voted five times that I was alive. And then I figured out, hell, I might as well vote I’m dead.
Which side won?
You know, I was afraid to go back and see.
Why did you return to coaching?
I went to Iraq on an N.F.L. alumni thing, and I talked to all these 19-year-old kids, and they said, “You gotta come back and coach.” I said, “You know what? If I get home after this frickin’ trip, I’m gonna coach.” And I’ve been coaching ever since. I have a good friend, Waylon Jennings, who got sick. He said, “Jerry Glanville, don’t you dare die with the music inside you.” I’m a teacher. It doesn’t matter where you coach, it doesn’t matter if you’re in college. If you see a kid get better, you’ve had a hell of a day.
Do you want to get back to the N.F.L.?
I don’t want to go another day without coaching. That’s all that matters. But I like pro football. In college football, I could’ve taught ‘em 10 more things, but we were out of time! You’re only allowed 21 hours per week? You gotta be kidding me! You can make them better, but you can’t meet any longer?
Aren’t the kids there to go to school?
Jim Leyland and I went to high school together in Detroit; he’s now the manager of the Detroit Tigers. Whenever the Tigers played an afternoon game, Jim Leyland and I went to the Tigers game, and my mom wrote me a note. I said, “Mom, you’re great for writing this note.” My mom said, “You’ll learn more at the stadium than you will at school.”
Coach, thanks for your time.
Don’t let anybody discourage you, man. You with me?
Sure, Coach.
When times get tough, you’ve got to roar up on your hind legs and kick like a wild horse. As long as you do that, they can never bother you. You with me?
Yes, sir.
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