By Pigskin Pete

March 1, 2007 -- Over a decade ago, your correspondent served as athletic advisor to then Portland State University President Roger Edgington. We crafted a marketing plan that provided the rationale for PSU achieving a move upward from NCAA Division II to Division IAA in 1996. The move was made, but has never reached its revenue or excitement potential in a football program that filled the seats under colorful coaches Mouse Davis and the late Pokey Allen.. Mouse found challenges in the NFL and Arena pro ranks. Allen was hired by Divsion I Boise State and was replaced by Tim Walsh, then head coach at Sonoma State, which has since dumped football.

Now, Walsh has moved on as an assistant at Divison I Army after 14 seasons at PSU. Walsh crafted a 90-68 record with the Vikings, but went 3-8, 4-7 and 5-6 before his first winning year at the IAA level, following a PSU program that had qualified for the national Division II playoffs 8 of the past 9 seasons. The Viking sell-out crowds of the Davis/Allen era became a distant memory in recent years as both attendance and excitement waned and the Portland State administration reacted by dampening, not encouraging, grid promotional efforts.

Adversity has finally awakened academia in the Park blocks. A search for Walsh’s replacement  has brilliantly culminated with the hire of former NFL head coach and headline-maker Jerry Glanville, a winner with the Houston Oilers and Atlanta Falcons before stepping into an NFL broadcasting role with Fox, HBO and CBS networks. Most recently, Granville emerged from retirement to join the University of Hawaii coaching staff under PSU alum June Jones, partnering with Jones’ PSU mentor Davis. Glanville, now a youthful 65, employed Jones as his assistant at both NFL stops and listened when Davis beckoned him to craft a defense for a porous Hawaii team. The Rainbow Warriors became a bowl team this past season with an 11-3 record that included a bowl victory over Arizona State and a sterling defensive statistics record.

Will Mouse return?

We expect Glanville will be joined for the 2007 PSU season by Davis, 74, whose "run and shoot" offensive tactics are legendary over his long coaching career that has earned titles at high school, college and professional coaching levels. 

After floundering in a football wilderness, Portland State has suddenly revived with a coaching solution worthy of the ages. PSU interim athletic director Teri Mariani deserves great credit for supporting the choice of Glanville with school President Daniel Bernstine, who to date has shown little support for the gridiron program that originally helped put a commuter school on the communal map. Within days, Glanville’s hire will be supported by selection of a new,permanent athletic director, whose primary function will be to generate funding and community support.

Glanville displayed, upon his arrival for a PSU interview, that he is a masterful salesman. He sparked prexy Bernstine into declaring realization of the importance of a successful football program in building the PSU communal image. Walsh was a stalwart individual, but a mediocre coach with no gifts of salesmanship that his predecessors displayed. We wish him well at the Military Academy, which has been a football also-ran for decades.

Football will be fun again in PGE Park, seats will be filled and wins accrued. Montana’s dominance of Big Sky play will now be successfully challenged. Recruiting will be neasurably enhanced and PSU alumni will emerge with chests puffed full.

We had written PSU football off as a lost cause until that black-clothed beacon that is Glanville arrived to lead the way to redemption.

© 2007  Oregon Magazine