Passionate Approach

Jerry Glanville is not a football wonk. He is not Vince Lombardi. He is not that coach who is going to stand beside a chalkboard and diagram every single nuance of each particular play.

Instead, Glanville is the excitable head football coach, the one who strives to encourage, motivate and instill a sense of confidence in his players with his hands-on approach.

Certainly, Glanville possesses his fair share of football knowledge. After all, he has been an NFL head coach on two separate occasions. But every time he steps on the football field he is more a beacon of inspiration than a technician.

“In 42 years of coaching, I have never coached anyone who has questioned my passion,” Glanville said. Despite a 3-8 campaign in Glanville’s first year in the South Park Blocks, Portland State took a quantum leap in game attendance and increased the public interest of the team. In their home games at PGE Park, the team attracted 3,000 more fans on average and collected more headlines than in the past five years combined.

Coming off a season that failed to reach the expectations of the generally optimistic but demanding Glanville, the Vikings will look to rebound when they take the field for year two under the “Man in Black” this August.

But the deck is stacked against Portland State, as the Vikings graduated 25 seniors this past season and are consequently inexperienced at several key positions.

In light of the shortcomings, the upcoming season will challenge whether Glanville’s passionate coaching style can move the Vikings closer to accomplishing the one thing that has always eluded Portland State football: winning a Big Sky Championship.

“This is probably our best chance to make strides athletically and financially in the program,” Athletic Director Torre Chisholm said of having Glanville in the fold.

Coaching 101: Passion breeds motivation Chisholm knows from experience that good coaching does not always start with preaching the Xs and Os. As an athletic department administrator at the University of California, Irvine, Chisholm remembers when men’s head volleyball coach John Speraw was hired six years ago.

“He was an incredibly dynamic coach, with great charisma and an incredibly strong philosophy,” Chisholm said.

Speraw inherited a historically unsuccessful squad. In just his fifth season, the Anteaters hovered around the No. 1 ranking almost the entire year and won the 2007 NCAA Men’s Volleyball National Championship.

Orchestrating a complete turnaround, Speraw’s 99 victories over his five years at UC Irvine eclipses the number of wins the squad had claimed in the prior 13 years.

“The key is having a coach with a philosophy and the ability to instill that belief in others,” Chisholm said. “And passion is a huge part.”

According to Chisholm, Speraw’s dynamic personality fueled the players, making them believe they could reach seemingly unachievable heights in a program that had a track record for finishing at the bottom of the conference standings.

Speraw certainly has the passion, and, for all accounts, Glanville does, too. “You absolutely see the passion in Jerry,” Chisholm said. “You get all of that and a true background of success.”

To most, Glanville’s love for the game is not a disputable matter. What is unknown, though, is whether he will be able to translate that passion into success, such as Speraw at UC Irvine.

The major difference is the Vikings have been fairly competitive in football over the past 15 years, with a 93-76 record during that span.

“Historically, football has been very solid. It’s been a solid performer in the Big Sky Conference,” Chisholm said.

But there is one caveat: The Vikings have not won a Big Sky Championship since joining the conference in 1996.

Chisholm said the Vikings must discover how to crack through that barrier and bring the title that has eluded Portland State to the South Park Blocks.

Breaking through with passionTeri Mariani, who recently retired after serving in a variety of roles in Portland State athletics for 38 years, hired Glanville last March. Like all of the candidates for the job, Mariani said the expectation was that Glanville would bring a Big Sky title to the Vikings.

This is where Glanville’s passion seems to factor into the equation.

Glanville says that a coach exuding his or her passion is all part of teaching the game to the players, ultimately helping them learn.

“They’ll know what it means to you based on what you demand from them,” Glanville said of the players’ ability to recognize the coach’s passion. “It has to permeate throughout the squad.”

It is a simple formula. Demonstrate to the players that the game means a great deal to you and the rest of the members of the team will follow suit, creating a sense of mutual effort that many coaches feel is absolutely necessary.

“As a coach, you have to have commitment from everyone,” said June Jones, former Portland State quarterback and current Southern Methodist University head coach.

Jones is familiar with fixing programs. As head coach, he brought Hawaii to national respectability after inheriting a winless team in 1999. This year, Jones embarks on another challenge, this time Southern Methodist University, which was 1-11 last season.

Having worked with both Glanville and Portland State offensive coordinator Darrell “Mouse” Davis, Junes believes the pair is the right fit for the Vikings.

“They will get it done because they are really motivators and believers in what they are doing,” Jones said of Glanville and Davis.

Junior quarterback Tygue Howland said Glanville has an aura about him, a characteristic that allows the players to trust what he is preaching and work with him to accomplish goals.

“He has a certain confidence when he says something, so you have this belief that it’s going to work out,” Howland said of Glanville.

Howland also said it is apparent to the players that Glanville is passionate about helping to improve the players and the team as a whole.

Mariani feels that having a coach who demonstrates that he or she cares is crucial for the team’s success in the long run.

“That’s what fires up the student-athlete,” Mariani said of being passionate. “And that’s how you get to the end result.”

As far as the end result that Portland State is shooting for, Mariani said that it is always the same–winning a Big Sky Championship. And that is an ultimate goal she “absolutely” thinks the Vikings are capable of accomplishing while the always-passionate Glanville is still on the sidelines.