FROM PORTLAND, ORE. — It wasn't his longtime love of teaching that ultimately brought Jerry Glanville back into coaching.
Nor was it advice from the late country music star Waylon Jennings, an old friend, who told the former NFL coach, "Don't you dare die with the music inside of you."
It was, instead, a visit to U.S. military troops in Iraq that drove Glanville back to the sidelines -- first at Hawaii and now, for the last two years, at Portland State.
"I promised the good Lord that if I got home, I would coach these 19-year-olds," Glanville, 67, tells a visitor to his office on Portland State's downtown campus. "The guys over there said, 'Come back and coach us, come back and coach our group.' And I made a promise that that was what I would do.
"It didn't matter where."
A football broadcaster after coaching the Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons from 1985 to 1993, Glanville rebooted his coaching career four years ago as an assistant to June Jones at Hawaii.
That led him to Portland State, where Jones once played and former Hawaii offensive coordinator Darrel "Mouse" Davis once coached. They urged Glanville to take the job.
The hiring of the garrulous Glanville, who compiled a 60-69 record in eight-plus NFL seasons, created a buzz around town, igniting ticket sales and sparking interest in a team that usually toils in the shadows of Oregon and Oregon State.
Consecutive losing seasons for a team that competes in the Football Championship Subdivision have tempered the initial enthusiasm, but Glanville remains upbeat.
Married and the father of a 26-year-old son, the coach still dresses all in black but sprinkles his conversation with colorful anecdotes. And he continues drawing on his 2004 trip to Iraq to provide invaluable insight into the players he now mentors.
"It's a generation of kids who live next door to you and you wonder about," he says. "I was guilty myself of thinking, 'Here's a guy with tattoos, pants hanging down by the bottom of his butt, an earring in his ear and a cigarette in his mouth,' and wondering, 'What the hell is this guy going to become?'
"That guy, defending our country, is a totally different guy. I found out over there, 'Don't judge him by what we think is a normal appearance.' The core, moral fiber is still outstanding."
Still, Glanville never dreamed of leading a lower-division college program, even after agreeing to visit Portland State.
