“I push my luck every minute of every day,’’ says Glanville. “I just lay it out there.’’
By the end of this upcoming football season, he’ll be 70 years old. His wife says he’s never gotten past 25. Ask him if he has a death wish, and he quotes the other man in black.
“Johnny Cash told me a great line,’’ he says. “We all want to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.’’
The ring tone on Glanville’s cell phone is “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door.’’
Glanville wears black because his players once complained that they couldn’t see his hand signals in a sea of white shirts in Los Angeles. Opponents cast him as a loud-mouthed villain in his stints with the Houston Oilers (1985-89) and Atlanta Falcons (1990-93). Some said his players played dirty.
“We didn’t play dirty,’’ says Glanville. “We just outhustled everybody.’’
His feuds with other coaches are well-documented. Bengals coach Sam Wyche once ran up a 61-7 score on Glanville’s Oilers in 1989, but Houston went to the playoffs and Cincinnati went home. Steelers coach Chuck Noll once angrily grabbed Glanville’s hand and wouldn’t let go.
Glanville acknowledges that he has made some enemies with his aggressive style.
“I memorize Yogi Berra,’’ he says. “Half the people love ya, half the people hate ya, and the other half don’t even know ya.’’
He is best known — erroneously, it turns out — for leaving tickets for Elvis Presley at the box office for every game he coached. He berated NFL officials by telling them “NFL’’ stands for “Not For Long’’ if they continue making bad calls.
While coaching Atlanta, he was quoted as saying it would take a plane crash for him to play a rookie named Brett Favre, Atlanta’s second-round pick in the 1991 draft. It’s a quote he now denies making.
“My life is a contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction,’’ he says, quoting a Kris Kristofferson song.
