Sunday, April 01, 2007
Glennon hoping to laugh last
Randy King
Randy King's Tech Insider is exclusive to roanoke.com and is posted by 5 p.m. Thursdays in season.
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BLACKSBURG -- I'm not Sean Glennon’s personal public relations director. That fact firmly established, I feel totally compelled to issue the following press release on behalf of the Virginia Tech quarterback.
It's brief, concise and strictly to the point. To all those of Hokie Nation hiding behind the cloak of Internet message-board anonymity who apparently have made it their solemn duty of their non-lives to constantly berate, belittle and rip Glennon, I offer the following stern reprimand: Stick it where the sun don't shine, you ignorant imbeciles.
Yeah, you're a bunch of total bozos. Glennon won't never say it publicly. The guy is way too smart and has way too much class to go there. Not me, though. I'll fire the scud at you scums. With total pleasure, I must confess.
Don't like Glennon as your quarterback? Well, tough luck nameless and faceless fair-weather fan. Guess what? He's the best QB you have right now.
Can't handle it? Well, take a redshirt year then. Better yet, just shut up, take the season off and get the heck out of Dodge.
After talking with Glennon for 6-7 minutes following Tech's first spring workout Wednesday, I found myself running a wheel route. OK, the guy's not a Vick. He's not Bryan Randall -- yet. He's not this guy, he's not that guy. He's not a lot of people.
So who is he? Just the best man for the job, that's all. I know Frank Beamer pretty well, folks. One of the most competitive guys I've ever met in my life. Don't believe it, tee it up against ol' Fancy Gap Frank for a $2 Nassau bet on the golf course. Sure, the money means nothing to him. Winning and losing does. Believe me, if Glennon wasn't the best option of his available QBs to win games, Beamer wouldn't care to keep rolling No. 7 at this craps table.
As important as winning is in today's big business world of major college football, forget the record stuff for now. For a guy who apparently wasn't nearly good enough despite his team's 10-3 record, Sean Glennon is even more impressively measured as a person. He's smart. He's personable. He's witty. He's polite and respectful. Rare tools these days, for sure. Not that I ever thought otherwise, the kid sold me lock, stock and barrel the other day.
Coming down I-81 back to Roanoke, I couldn't help but admire Glennon's words as I intently listened to the 25-minute-old conversation we had held. So what there was an congo line of 18-wheelers lined up and drafting my back bumper coming down Christiansburg Mountain. No big deal. Heck, I was too busy laughing as I thought about those message-board buffoons.
My conclusion: Know what, clowns? I think you should be totally be proud this guy is your quarterback.
Makes no difference, though. Because none of you have a clue.
You've never talked to this guy. If you had, you'd know how much Sean Glennon cares. Walk a day in this guy's shoes all you 'puter pals and I'm betting most of you are are in a blue practice jersey for two weeks. Take a blind-side shot in the square of the back from a defender going full bore off the edge and and I'm wagering a spatula will have to be located to scrape you up off the grass. Yeah, Glennon was intercepted three times in eight minutes in the fourth quarter of Tech's bowl game loss to Georgia. Well, I'm thinking y'all can't pass the salt at the kitchen table three straight times without getting picked or fumbling.
Before the bowl loss, Glennon was already the naysayers' favorite whipping boy. Following the Hokies' major meltdown in Hotlanta, the clowns had taken their comedy act to near lynch-mob proportions.
Glennon is sinnin'. Glennon is not winnin'. Glennon heard all that B.S., plus another couple train-car loads of pure manure. Know what? Didn't faze the guy. He already had beaten himself to a pulp.
Not once did Glennon ever lay the blame on an offensive line, which without a couple of injured starters late in the bowl game, more resembled a row of freshly lubed turnstiles. Glennon took all the hits for his teammates. His body after the game looked like one that had been fed to a bunch of pitbulls that hadn't been fed in days.
"It may not be fair," said Glennon, "but I’ve said this before: If I didn’t want this kind of national spotlight and the possibility for criticism, I wouldn’t have come to a school like Virginia Tech. You’ve got to expect it. When things aren’t going well, you’re the first guy they look at. They’re not going to look at the linebacker, they’re not going to look at the receiver, they look this at this quarterback who is not winning games for us.
"Although it may not be fair, hey, that’s part of the job. I probably get too much credit when we’re winning, and I get too much blame when we’re losing. But it comes with the territory, so I don’t dwell on it."
"All anyone ever remembers is the last game. Yeah, it kinda stinks. And it hurt because I thought I had finished the regular season strong. I mean fans are going to be fans. When we’re winning they love me, and when we’re losing they don’t like me too much. So I’m not going to take that personally."
As if he hadn't absorbed enough blows in the month following the bowl fiasco, Glennon took another haymaker in late February when graduated senior defensive end Noland Burchette sounded off. The always candid Burchette, going unplugged in this space here, created a mini-firestorm when he said as he and some other players felt Glennon had been given too many chances during the regular season, compared to not enough for backup Ike Whitaker.
"That hurt," Glennon conceded. "Fans are one thing, but teammates ... I’ve always said the only opinions that I respect are those of my teammates and my coaches. And to hear a teammate say that, although I thought it was a little classless to blast a teammate like that, I kinda took it a little more personally than if I had just saw some guy on the Internet write that about me. But it’s over and done with. I’m not going to cry over it."
Instead, Glennon has become more driven than ever to prove himself. He busted his buns all winter in the weight room and has turned his once golfer-like physique into a rippled torso that resembles that of mid-1990s fan favorite Jim Druckenmiller. On top of the iron pumping work, Glennon has routinely spent almost every idle moment of his free time in the film room since the bowl game.
He's still standing firm. Don't expect any white towels flying out of this guy's corner anytime soon.
"Maybe what happened in the bowl game will prove to be a beneficial thing for my career in the long run for me," Glennon said. "If I play well and we win that game, who knows .... maybe I don't come back like I have and have that fire burning inside me that I have now. I want to prove to all those who say I can't do this that they're wrong.
Glennon then flashed a coy grin.
"I'm ready," he said. "I'm prepared. Let's go. I can't wait."
To stick it where the sun doesn't shine, bozos.
