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Wyoming Coach Infects Program
Glenn's enthusiasm is contagious.
Dec. 17, 2004 See the story on The Daily News
By Brian Dohn LAS VEGAS -- On the night Joe Glenn was introduced as Wyoming's football coach, he walked to center court during halftime of a basketball game and sang the school's fight song. Wyoming's fans were instantly roped in by the personable and energetic Glenn. Two years later, the admiration is even stronger as the Cowboys prepare for their first bowl game since the 1993 Copper Bowl. The Cowboys, who had five victories in three seasons before Glenn arrived, meet UCLA on Thursday in the Las Vegas Bowl. "Once you meet Joe, it takes you about three seconds to feed off his enthusiasm," Wyoming athletic director Gary Barta said. "That's what he's done on the campus. That's what he's done with his players. That's what he's done with the people of this state." The 55-year-old Glenn, in his second year at the school, restored pride to a program known for producing great coaches and could become the next name on the list. Wyoming's prominent coaching lineage is traced back to the 1940s, when Bowden Wyatt led the Cowboys for six seasons (1947-52) before landing at Tennessee. Bob Devaney spent five seasons (1957-61) at Wyoming before leading Nebraska to two national titles. Former Green Bay Packers defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur (1971-74) coached Wyoming for four seasons, Fred Akers headed Wyoming's program for two years (1975-76) before going to Texas, and Pat Dye (1980) and Dennis Erickson (1986) each spent a year at the helm before going to Auburn and Washington State, respectively. Purdue coach Joe Tiller was the latest now well-known coach to come from Wyoming. Tiller led the Cowboys for six seasons (1991-96). "Joe's Mr. personality," said UCLA defensive coordinator Larry Kerr, a close friend of Glenn's. "Joe is a great motivator. I'm not amazed (by Wyoming's success) because the guy is a good football coach. He's proven it at every level, and I'm not surprised he's doing it now." Before leading Wyoming to a 4-8 mark in 2003, Glenn spent three years leading Division I-AA Montana and 11 years at Division II Northern Colorado. In the seven seasons before taking the Wyoming job, Glenn won at least 11 games each year and won three national titles. "When someone has that in their past, it usually holds true in their future," Barta said. "He's a leader, and he took that group of guys and he convinced them that they could win. We're not there yet. We're still having to build up our skills level. We still need to get bigger, faster, stronger." But at least the Cowboys are better after a disastrous run that made Wyoming nothing more than a punch line to the country and a punching bag for opponents. In Vic Koenning's three seasons, Wyoming went 5-29 and lost 18 of its final 20 games. The five wins were against Central Michigan, Furman, Utah State, The Citadel and Air Force. Wyoming's average margin of defeat under Koenning was 18.8 points, and only seven of the 29 losses were by seven points or fewer. When Glenn, one of 12 children, walked into the mess, he immediately made the players believe success was close by relaying a lesson taught to him roughly five decades ago by his mom, when she would ask the Glenn boys to clean their clothes-strewn room on a Saturday morning. "We were like, 'Aw, mom, c'mon.' She would always ask us, 'How do you eat an elephant?' " Glenn said. "We'd always answer one bite at a time. When we got here, I told our team, 'When you've got a big job to do, how do you eat an elephant?' I taught them one bite at a time" Glenn said there was no one gargantuan bite, but an early-season upset of Mississippi helped. However, senior linebacker and captain Guy Tuell, Wyoming's second-leading tackler with 73, said the turning point came Dec. 12, 2002, when Glenn was hired. "I was going to transfer to (Colorado) if he didn't get the job," said Tuell, who is from Yuma, Colo. "He brought the confidence back into our program. He brought a great coaching staff that recognized what type of players we have on our team. He put us in the right position to get our job done." A win against a big-name school such as UCLA would greatly aid recruiting, the lifeblood of any program. But Wyoming has some unique challenges, and it starts with just 40 football-playing high schools in the state. Also, the campus is in Laramie, in the southeast corner of the state. If out-of-area recruits don't enjoy prop planes or small jets, a flight into Denver and a three-hour drive bookends the recruiting trip. There also is the climate. War Memorial Stadium sits 7,220 feet above sea level, the highest of any a Division I-A stadium, and winters, as well as parts of autumn and spring, are filled with snow, ice and cold. "We're off the beaten path a little bit," Glenn said. "We're in a great town, but maybe a high school kid in one weekend wouldn't see what great tradition we have, and how collegiate our campus is. Ya know, we're not bright lights, big city." A key factor in Glenn's hire was his tie to the local high schools in Wyoming and Colorado from his days as coach at Northern Colorado. Colorado, after all, supplies Wyoming with most of its players. The school's media guide lists 34 players from Colorado, 11 from California and six from Wyoming. "Being from Colorado and seeing what he did at UNC, I knew he was going to change our program, and it would be in a hurry," Tuell said. "I see Wyoming, in the very near future, being the Utah of the Mountain West Conference."
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