I WOULD RATHER SPEND 1 DAY WITH THE LIONS THAN 1000 DAYS WITH THE SHEEP!
Glanville's life turned by Iraq visit
Brian Meehan: Glanville phones loved ones of U.S. soldiers
Like some character out of a Joseph Conrad novel, Jerry Glanville journeyed almost 7,000 miles from his suburban Atlanta home to the deserts of the Mideast to find his second calling as a football coach.
And the message was delivered by thousands of young- American soldiers.
In March 2004, Glanville had not coached an NFL game in 11 years. It had been 30 years since he coached in college. Portland State's new head coach had a jaundiced view of a younger generation that favored baggy jeans, earrings and hip-hop music.
But this would change during a weeklong tour of U.S. bases in Kuwait and Iraq. Glanville joined a group of NFL alumni that included Deacon Jones, Bud Grant and Randy Gradishar.
"I think it changed everybody's life," Glanville said Tuesday. "Deacon Jones said for the first time in his life, he knew what terror was."
Fate is inscrutable. If not for a random seat pairing on a Tampa-to-Los Angeles flight, Glanville might never have returned to college coaching in Hawaii or become Portland State's 12th football coach.
Ray Carolin, a former Secret Service agent and treasurer of the Arizona chapter of the NFL alumni, was on that flight. He talked for hours with his seatmate, an Army officer dressed in civilian clothes. The officer asked Carolin if he could assemble an NFL group to visit soldiers in the Mideast. The two shook hands at baggage claim and went their separate ways.
Only later did Carolin realize who his seatmate was: Gen. Tommy Franks, leader of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and commander-in-chief of the U.S. occupation forces.
A year later, Franks invited Carolin to bring over a group; Glanville was among those who quickly accepted.
The footballers got a quick introduction to dangerous Iraq when their C130 executed a spiral landing into Baghdad to avoid missile fire. The plane dropped from 20,000 feet in terribly banked turns until it landed hard on the runway.
"It is like falling out of a 10-story building," Glanville said.
The group visited with troops in the Green Zone, the fortified area of Central Baghdad. They dressed in steel helmets and body armor and signed autographs for Navy Seals, soldiers in the Army's 1st Cavalry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas, and National Guard personnel from Minnesota and the Dakotas.
Soon, Glanville began to think it was he who should be collecting their autographs.
Riding in a Humvee caravan on a lonely road that pierces the desert between Kuwait and Iraq, Glanville read words that changed his life. They were written on the wall of the last latrine along this treeless sand anvil.
"I would rather live one day with the lions than 1,000 days with the lambs. Signed: The American soldier."
"We were over there to help boost their morale, but it was the 19-year-olds of today who gave us the right morale," Glanville said.
Glanville filled a book with names of soldiers. He asked they include the phone number of a loved one. When Glanville returned home, he spent weeks phoning family members to tell them that their son, husband, wife, daughter was doing just fine. Glanville made 70 calls a day until he got through the thousands of numbers he had collected.
The goodwill trip turned more harrowing than any football game ever had been.
One day in Baghdad, Glanville ran into a CIA agent who had been an academic coach when Glanville was a graduate assistant at Western Kentucky. The man invited the group to dine with him outside the heavily patrolled Green Zone.
The Army wouldn't send guards so Glanville's friend sent several vehicles. The vehicles, manned by Kurdish guards, roared at high speeds, six feet apart, weaving a serpentine pattern down the "highway of death."
When they arrived, there were 14 machine gunners on the roof the 18-story Palestine Hotel. Glanville and company were urged to sprint for the doors. Once inside, the Kurds lined up vehicles in front of the main entrance to deflect any suicide bomber.
While Baghdad is dry, the host laid out beer and liquor.
"All of us were consuming heavily," Carolin said, "because we knew we'd have to drive back to the base on that highway of death."
Huddled on the floor of a battered Toyota, Glanville and Carolin were scared during the ride back. Glanville said to Carolin, "If we are lucky enough to get out of here, I'm going to go back to coaching in college."
The next fall, Glanville became June Jones' defensive coordinator at Hawaii. Last week, the 65-year-old took over the Vikings' program. And it's all because of what 19-year-olds taught him in the Iraqi desert -- that his life is enriched in the presence of young people.
"I used to think, like a lot of old guys, 'Who is going to run the country when we're dead,' " Glanville said. "Well, I found about 5,000 young people and I am not going to worry for one minute more about the future. They can do everything better than me."
Welcome to Portland Jerry!
