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Terry Glenn: Dallas' stealth bomber
Posted 11/8/2006 12:01 PM ET
By Jim Corbett, USA TODAY
IRVING, Texas ? Pssst. Looking to take a Terrell Owens timeout? A T.O. TO? Try over here, four lockers down from Owens.
It's as if Terry Glenn inhabits an alternate universe ? so close, yet a world apart from his Dallas Cowboys counterpart.
There ought to be a hammock here. It's a seeming vacation oasis, where peace, quiet and space to move about are found aplenty away from the claustrophobic cluster of reporters and television camera crews chronicling Owens' latest drama.
Here in the sanctuary of T.O.'s shadow, Glenn comes and goes as he pleases. There might as well be a "No Trespassing" sign up considering the number of interviews Glenn has done at his locker this season.
In other words, T.G. is the anti-T.O., though it wasn't always that way. Five years ago, back in New England, Glenn was the high-maintenance receiver suspended by his coach before his tenure ended in a messy, public divorce from a Super Bowl team ? much the way Owens' two-season tenure in Philadelphia did.
The Cowboys have seemingly morphed from America's Team to America's circus since Owens arrived in March telling everyone to get their popcorn ready. But the Cowboys' 11th-year receiver can put on a show worthy of popcorn as proven by 559 career receptions for 8,232 yards and 42 touchdowns.
Under the radar is the way this stealth receiver prefers to fly.
Maybe that's because peace has been so hard to come by for Glenn, whose mother was beaten to death and found in an abandoned building where Glenn and his friends used to play when he was 13.
The soft-spoken but thoughtful Glenn's tale is every bit the heart-wrenching story of abandonment T.O. overcame growing up across the street from a father he never knew.
Glenn can finally talk about his mom, Donetta, and even has a tattoo with her nickname "Nicey" etched in bold script on the right side of his neck. The tattoo amazed Glenn's younger sister Dorothy because Terry was so haunted by his mother's death. Glenn's depression cast a cloud over his time in New England and Green Bay before his 2003 trade to Dallas in exchange for a sixth-round pick.
Glenn wears his mom's nickname like a birthmark, along with the tattooed names of daughters Natalie, 4, and Samantha, 1?, etched inside his forearms. He has a baby son, Christian, and considers his three children sweet redemption for his own bleak childhood.
"I was pretty young, and my mom was in and out of prison," Glenn says. "So I really stayed with my grandmother up until I was 13.
"My mom had a real good heart. She was murdered. A guy beat her to death and stuck her in an abandoned building, one where we used to play as kids. I don't know why she was murdered. The guy who did it just got out this year. He's been in jail since I was 13."
It's a breakthrough for Glenn, 32, to even talk about Nicey, says Dorothy, 25.
"I don't think he's even been to our mom's gravesite," Dorothy says. "But I went there recently and cried. I faced her death. And I think he feels that, 'Because my little sister's dealt with our mom's death, it's time for me to deal with it, too.'
"Before, you couldn't talk to Terry about my mom. He would get really angry or really teary-eyed. But he's faced her death and moved on.
"Two years ago, he had her name tattooed on his neck. And Terry always made fun of me before that for getting a tattoo.
"I said, 'What's that on your neck?' And he said, 'We've made it.' He got teary-eyed and said, 'I love my mom.' "
Even now, Dorothy says Nicey's memory lives in Terry: "She's given him his strength, his speed and his smile. And those hands. They're hands that won't drop anything."
Glenn flexes long, graceful hands. They call to mind a musician's hands or those belonging to an NBA star. The latter is a role Glenn once dreamed of playing before shyness caused him to embrace football because he could wear a helmet that shielded his face from the crowd.
Those hands belie so much tragedy and uncertainty Glenn was forced to handle. They are soft and sure, everything his early life was not.
"I always look at my hands as my blessing for how hard my life has been," Glenn says. "I really think I was put here for a reason. I look at the way God designed my body and my hands. This is what I was meant to do.
"My fingers are pretty long. That's why I'm able to catch a lot of balls with my hands. My eye-hand coordination ? I was just born to do this."
A kid from Columbus, Ohio, took the long, twisting road to self-discovery without the benefit of any MapQuest directions.
"My family was never big into sports," Glenn says. "I just remember I had two sets of friends. I had my black friends, and I had my white friends. Not to make it a color thing, but when I was with my black friends we would run the streets and do a lot of the stuff young kids do. And then I had another set of friends across the tracks so to speak.
"Their families were structured. They had kids playing football, and I latched onto that. Those friends helped me with that part of my life. I knew I wanted to be on that side, the structured side. I'm not a bad person. But of course I was in trouble as a kid."
Drew Bledsoe, the quarterback Glenn clicked with when he caught a then-rookie record 90 passes with the Patriots in 1996 and again with the Cowboys until Tony Romo's Oct. 29 ascension, recalls the difficulties Glenn had in New England.
"Terry went through some stuff in New England that wasn't good, some of it his own doing and some of it from outside influences," Bledsoe remembers.
But these days, the quarterback can't ever recall seeing Glenn happier. When they were together at Cowboys charity golf outings this offseason, Bledsoe said Glenn was accompanied by one of his daughters and wore a perma-smile.
"You can tell he's in a good place personally now," Bledsoe says. "You ask him about his kids and he just smiles."
Dorothy can always tell when Terry's done his daughters' hair.
"The two pony tails are lopsided," she says, laughing. "Spending time with them, that's what makes him rich."
Glenn is finally enjoying the family life with his kids and fianc?e Monica Carnevalini that he experienced only when he lived with the families of high school friends.
"In New England, he had a huge house and some fancy cars, but he wasn't happy," Dorothy says. "Now Terry's content. He's not a young boy anymore. He's grown up and has kids of his own. He's well balanced now."
Bledsoe is gracious and grateful for the opportunity to talk about Glenn ? not because of any animosity toward Owens, but because of his deep respect for Glenn's talent and all he's watched him go through.
"I'm glad you're here to do a story on Terry," Bledsoe says. "He deserves it. He's really underrated. And it's by design that he flies under the radar. But boy, he can play.
"He loves to play the game. How could you not love it if you're a guy who can do the things he can do?"
"I like Terry a lot," says Romo, who won his Week 8 starting debut. "Terry has been one of the most underrated receivers in the league the last four years since I have been here.
"I'm just glad I'm able to play when he is on the field."
Asked who his new best friend is among the receiver corps, Romo said: "I have a group of best friends on this receiver corps."
The 5-11, 195-pound Glenn has 36 catches for 456 yards with four touchdowns; Owens has 44 for 558 and six TDs.
"I love to watch Terry Glenn," St. Louis Rams receiver Torry Holt says. "I look at receivers who were in this game before me. Terry Glenn is one of the guys. He plays the game the right way and plays at a fast tempo that a lot of defensive backs can't match."
Many of Glenn's attributes impress Holt, who says, "He's not a real big guy. But he plays bigger than his size. He goes across the middle. He's able to go up and high point the ball. He's able to run for big yards after the catch. He does everything well. I give him a lot of respect, props and praise."
Holt thinks there is more to come: "With his speed and his quickness when he gets one-on-one matchups, are you kidding me? Along with T.O.'s help and (tight end) Jason Witten, I don't think there's any doubt we're going to see Terry Glenn's best season yet this year."
Glenn was the seventh overall pick in the 1996 draft.
His coach then and now, Bill Parcells, says Glenn has matured, yet remains one of the league's most underrated receivers. Parcells derisively called Glenn "she" when he was upset by the amount of practice time Glenn missed because of a nagging hamstring injury in his rookie training camp. Both men joke about it now; Parcells said recently, "I told him if he kept catching passes I was going to call him Miss America."
Glenn never took the remark to heart.
"He really wanted to get the best out of me at the time, and I didn't understand. And that's what takes your breath away when you finally sit back and say, 'Hey, he was right to be hard on me.' It really helped," Glenn says. "Bill has definitely been a father figure to me. I really didn't have a father around when I was younger."
Parcells' impact on Glenn has clearly exceeded the scope of the gridiron.
"I can only imagine someone you have a lot of respect for, you're almost a little afraid of," Glenn says. "But at the same time, when they show you love, it's like the best love you can ever feel. That's what Bill Parcells makes me feel like.
"In return, you give him your best. He makes you feel like you're invincible and you'd do anything for him."
The respect is mutual.
"There's three or four players who are tremendously underrated, and Terry is one of them," Parcells said during a news conference. "Now I'm a little prejudiced. I've had him since he was 20. Terry's a mature football player now who knows how to play, what to do ? not that he doesn't need a few friendly reminders every once in a while.
"He's exceptionally quick, and he has (the) rare ability to catch the ball. God gave him some attributes not very many people have."
Among those is recognition.
"He understands me well, and that's not the easiest thing to do," Parcells says. "And I understand him, I think, well.
"And that's not the easiest thing to do. I don't know why we've hit it off. It's just been from day one. We've always hit it off.
"He's doing a good job for us. We need for him to play well to win, all the time."
Glenn never got a Super Bowl ring with the 2001 Patriots. He caught 14 passes, including a touchdown, in the four games he played between two suspensions, grievances and a salary dispute.
The league suspended him for the first four games of that season for missing a drug test, and the Patriots stopped paying installments on his signing bonus.
When coach Bill Belichick suspended him for the rest of the season for conduct detrimental to the team, the suspension was overturned by an arbitrator.
When he missed more team meetings and practices, Glenn was suspended for New England's postseason run.
He threatened a federal lawsuit in a bid to recoup his signing bonus until all grievances were dropped when Glenn was traded to the Packers in March 2002 for a pair of fourth-round picks.
"I didn't even bother with the Super Bowl ring," Glenn says. "Although I played in games for them, I want to play in that Super Bowl-winning game for my team.
"I don't want to just be on the team and say, 'Hey, give me a ring.' No, I want to win and actually earn one here with this team."
Glenn blamed chronic depression for that missed drug test but was still suspended because a missed test carries the same penalty as a positive test under league rules.
All that mercurial behavior seems behind him despite a 2005 arrest for public intoxication.
Glenn returned to Columbus this spring to attend the retirement party of his Brookhaven High senior adviser, Georgia Hauser. Hauser considers Glenn a surrogate son.
"Terry was always quiet." Hauser says. "There's nothing loud about him. He doesn't like to draw attention. That's how he was in high school, and how he still is."
Hauser continued to watch over Glenn long after he left Brookhaven.
"I went with Terry when he signed his contract with New England and Green Bay," Hauser says. "I have my own son, but I consider Terry my son, too. He's gone through a lot in his life."
Given his early setbacks, Hauser is quite proud of the man Glenn has become.
"There was love there between Terry and his mother," she says. "He always talked about his mother. He's been able to make it when you wondered, 'How could he?'
"He knows who he is. Terry's not only a player for 11 years, he's a teacher, a role he's taken on with younger players and people. He's great with his kids."
Glenn seems to be savoring the opportunities life has afforded him.
"Terry was given a lot of gifts," Hauser says. "It's one thing to be given them. It's another to use them."
Glenn thought better of quitting after his angry feud with Belichick.
"Terry said, 'If you quit, that's a huge sin,' " his sister says. "It's the same thing he says on the field now, 'You can't catch them all, but you have to keep fighting for that next one.' "
Now he hopes his story of perseverance helps other troubled kids.
"You've just got to be thankful for what you've got and for being alive because there are a lot of people I know who are dead who should be here right now," Glenn says. "I'd tell kids to never quit. What I've learned from all the bad and good, that's what life is.
"I was finally able to handle the positive things, which can be just as hard to handle as the negatives."
Dorothy says: "He's been through all these things, and look where he is. He can go home to his girls, and they are waiting for him at the door ... and that's what really matters."
Glenn smiles. But it is not a boyish smile anymore. It is the hard-won grin of a man in full ? a grin that proves, as his sister says, that a hurting and emotionally fragile 13-year-old boy has gone away at long last.
"Whenever I was going through an issue, something I had to fight through, it was almost like a pass out there in a game," Glenn says. "It's the same way for me in life. If the ball was too easy, coming right at me, those are the ones I drop.
"But if it's thrown up there in the rafters, those are the ones I fight for.
"I want the throws to be difficult."
Contributing: Clarence Hill Jr.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/footb...nn-cover_x.htm
__________________
Terry Glenn: Dallas' stealth bomber
Posted 11/8/2006 12:01 PM ET
By Jim Corbett, USA TODAY
IRVING, Texas ? Pssst. Looking to take a Terrell Owens timeout? A T.O. TO? Try over here, four lockers down from Owens.
It's as if Terry Glenn inhabits an alternate universe ? so close, yet a world apart from his Dallas Cowboys counterpart.
There ought to be a hammock here. It's a seeming vacation oasis, where peace, quiet and space to move about are found aplenty away from the claustrophobic cluster of reporters and television camera crews chronicling Owens' latest drama.
Here in the sanctuary of T.O.'s shadow, Glenn comes and goes as he pleases. There might as well be a "No Trespassing" sign up considering the number of interviews Glenn has done at his locker this season.
In other words, T.G. is the anti-T.O., though it wasn't always that way. Five years ago, back in New England, Glenn was the high-maintenance receiver suspended by his coach before his tenure ended in a messy, public divorce from a Super Bowl team ? much the way Owens' two-season tenure in Philadelphia did.
The Cowboys have seemingly morphed from America's Team to America's circus since Owens arrived in March telling everyone to get their popcorn ready. But the Cowboys' 11th-year receiver can put on a show worthy of popcorn as proven by 559 career receptions for 8,232 yards and 42 touchdowns.
Under the radar is the way this stealth receiver prefers to fly.
Maybe that's because peace has been so hard to come by for Glenn, whose mother was beaten to death and found in an abandoned building where Glenn and his friends used to play when he was 13.
The soft-spoken but thoughtful Glenn's tale is every bit the heart-wrenching story of abandonment T.O. overcame growing up across the street from a father he never knew.
Glenn can finally talk about his mom, Donetta, and even has a tattoo with her nickname "Nicey" etched in bold script on the right side of his neck. The tattoo amazed Glenn's younger sister Dorothy because Terry was so haunted by his mother's death. Glenn's depression cast a cloud over his time in New England and Green Bay before his 2003 trade to Dallas in exchange for a sixth-round pick.
Glenn wears his mom's nickname like a birthmark, along with the tattooed names of daughters Natalie, 4, and Samantha, 1?, etched inside his forearms. He has a baby son, Christian, and considers his three children sweet redemption for his own bleak childhood.
"I was pretty young, and my mom was in and out of prison," Glenn says. "So I really stayed with my grandmother up until I was 13.
"My mom had a real good heart. She was murdered. A guy beat her to death and stuck her in an abandoned building, one where we used to play as kids. I don't know why she was murdered. The guy who did it just got out this year. He's been in jail since I was 13."
It's a breakthrough for Glenn, 32, to even talk about Nicey, says Dorothy, 25.
"I don't think he's even been to our mom's gravesite," Dorothy says. "But I went there recently and cried. I faced her death. And I think he feels that, 'Because my little sister's dealt with our mom's death, it's time for me to deal with it, too.'
"Before, you couldn't talk to Terry about my mom. He would get really angry or really teary-eyed. But he's faced her death and moved on.
"Two years ago, he had her name tattooed on his neck. And Terry always made fun of me before that for getting a tattoo.
"I said, 'What's that on your neck?' And he said, 'We've made it.' He got teary-eyed and said, 'I love my mom.' "
Even now, Dorothy says Nicey's memory lives in Terry: "She's given him his strength, his speed and his smile. And those hands. They're hands that won't drop anything."
Glenn flexes long, graceful hands. They call to mind a musician's hands or those belonging to an NBA star. The latter is a role Glenn once dreamed of playing before shyness caused him to embrace football because he could wear a helmet that shielded his face from the crowd.
Those hands belie so much tragedy and uncertainty Glenn was forced to handle. They are soft and sure, everything his early life was not.
"I always look at my hands as my blessing for how hard my life has been," Glenn says. "I really think I was put here for a reason. I look at the way God designed my body and my hands. This is what I was meant to do.
"My fingers are pretty long. That's why I'm able to catch a lot of balls with my hands. My eye-hand coordination ? I was just born to do this."
A kid from Columbus, Ohio, took the long, twisting road to self-discovery without the benefit of any MapQuest directions.
"My family was never big into sports," Glenn says. "I just remember I had two sets of friends. I had my black friends, and I had my white friends. Not to make it a color thing, but when I was with my black friends we would run the streets and do a lot of the stuff young kids do. And then I had another set of friends across the tracks so to speak.
"Their families were structured. They had kids playing football, and I latched onto that. Those friends helped me with that part of my life. I knew I wanted to be on that side, the structured side. I'm not a bad person. But of course I was in trouble as a kid."
Drew Bledsoe, the quarterback Glenn clicked with when he caught a then-rookie record 90 passes with the Patriots in 1996 and again with the Cowboys until Tony Romo's Oct. 29 ascension, recalls the difficulties Glenn had in New England.
"Terry went through some stuff in New England that wasn't good, some of it his own doing and some of it from outside influences," Bledsoe remembers.
But these days, the quarterback can't ever recall seeing Glenn happier. When they were together at Cowboys charity golf outings this offseason, Bledsoe said Glenn was accompanied by one of his daughters and wore a perma-smile.
"You can tell he's in a good place personally now," Bledsoe says. "You ask him about his kids and he just smiles."
Dorothy can always tell when Terry's done his daughters' hair.
"The two pony tails are lopsided," she says, laughing. "Spending time with them, that's what makes him rich."
Glenn is finally enjoying the family life with his kids and fianc?e Monica Carnevalini that he experienced only when he lived with the families of high school friends.
"In New England, he had a huge house and some fancy cars, but he wasn't happy," Dorothy says. "Now Terry's content. He's not a young boy anymore. He's grown up and has kids of his own. He's well balanced now."
Bledsoe is gracious and grateful for the opportunity to talk about Glenn ? not because of any animosity toward Owens, but because of his deep respect for Glenn's talent and all he's watched him go through.
"I'm glad you're here to do a story on Terry," Bledsoe says. "He deserves it. He's really underrated. And it's by design that he flies under the radar. But boy, he can play.
"He loves to play the game. How could you not love it if you're a guy who can do the things he can do?"
"I like Terry a lot," says Romo, who won his Week 8 starting debut. "Terry has been one of the most underrated receivers in the league the last four years since I have been here.
"I'm just glad I'm able to play when he is on the field."
Asked who his new best friend is among the receiver corps, Romo said: "I have a group of best friends on this receiver corps."
The 5-11, 195-pound Glenn has 36 catches for 456 yards with four touchdowns; Owens has 44 for 558 and six TDs.
"I love to watch Terry Glenn," St. Louis Rams receiver Torry Holt says. "I look at receivers who were in this game before me. Terry Glenn is one of the guys. He plays the game the right way and plays at a fast tempo that a lot of defensive backs can't match."
Many of Glenn's attributes impress Holt, who says, "He's not a real big guy. But he plays bigger than his size. He goes across the middle. He's able to go up and high point the ball. He's able to run for big yards after the catch. He does everything well. I give him a lot of respect, props and praise."
Holt thinks there is more to come: "With his speed and his quickness when he gets one-on-one matchups, are you kidding me? Along with T.O.'s help and (tight end) Jason Witten, I don't think there's any doubt we're going to see Terry Glenn's best season yet this year."
Glenn was the seventh overall pick in the 1996 draft.
His coach then and now, Bill Parcells, says Glenn has matured, yet remains one of the league's most underrated receivers. Parcells derisively called Glenn "she" when he was upset by the amount of practice time Glenn missed because of a nagging hamstring injury in his rookie training camp. Both men joke about it now; Parcells said recently, "I told him if he kept catching passes I was going to call him Miss America."
Glenn never took the remark to heart.
"He really wanted to get the best out of me at the time, and I didn't understand. And that's what takes your breath away when you finally sit back and say, 'Hey, he was right to be hard on me.' It really helped," Glenn says. "Bill has definitely been a father figure to me. I really didn't have a father around when I was younger."
Parcells' impact on Glenn has clearly exceeded the scope of the gridiron.
"I can only imagine someone you have a lot of respect for, you're almost a little afraid of," Glenn says. "But at the same time, when they show you love, it's like the best love you can ever feel. That's what Bill Parcells makes me feel like.
"In return, you give him your best. He makes you feel like you're invincible and you'd do anything for him."
The respect is mutual.
"There's three or four players who are tremendously underrated, and Terry is one of them," Parcells said during a news conference. "Now I'm a little prejudiced. I've had him since he was 20. Terry's a mature football player now who knows how to play, what to do ? not that he doesn't need a few friendly reminders every once in a while.
"He's exceptionally quick, and he has (the) rare ability to catch the ball. God gave him some attributes not very many people have."
Among those is recognition.
"He understands me well, and that's not the easiest thing to do," Parcells says. "And I understand him, I think, well.
"And that's not the easiest thing to do. I don't know why we've hit it off. It's just been from day one. We've always hit it off.
"He's doing a good job for us. We need for him to play well to win, all the time."
Glenn never got a Super Bowl ring with the 2001 Patriots. He caught 14 passes, including a touchdown, in the four games he played between two suspensions, grievances and a salary dispute.
The league suspended him for the first four games of that season for missing a drug test, and the Patriots stopped paying installments on his signing bonus.
When coach Bill Belichick suspended him for the rest of the season for conduct detrimental to the team, the suspension was overturned by an arbitrator.
When he missed more team meetings and practices, Glenn was suspended for New England's postseason run.
He threatened a federal lawsuit in a bid to recoup his signing bonus until all grievances were dropped when Glenn was traded to the Packers in March 2002 for a pair of fourth-round picks.
"I didn't even bother with the Super Bowl ring," Glenn says. "Although I played in games for them, I want to play in that Super Bowl-winning game for my team.
"I don't want to just be on the team and say, 'Hey, give me a ring.' No, I want to win and actually earn one here with this team."
Glenn blamed chronic depression for that missed drug test but was still suspended because a missed test carries the same penalty as a positive test under league rules.
All that mercurial behavior seems behind him despite a 2005 arrest for public intoxication.
Glenn returned to Columbus this spring to attend the retirement party of his Brookhaven High senior adviser, Georgia Hauser. Hauser considers Glenn a surrogate son.
"Terry was always quiet." Hauser says. "There's nothing loud about him. He doesn't like to draw attention. That's how he was in high school, and how he still is."
Hauser continued to watch over Glenn long after he left Brookhaven.
"I went with Terry when he signed his contract with New England and Green Bay," Hauser says. "I have my own son, but I consider Terry my son, too. He's gone through a lot in his life."
Given his early setbacks, Hauser is quite proud of the man Glenn has become.
"There was love there between Terry and his mother," she says. "He always talked about his mother. He's been able to make it when you wondered, 'How could he?'
"He knows who he is. Terry's not only a player for 11 years, he's a teacher, a role he's taken on with younger players and people. He's great with his kids."
Glenn seems to be savoring the opportunities life has afforded him.
"Terry was given a lot of gifts," Hauser says. "It's one thing to be given them. It's another to use them."
Glenn thought better of quitting after his angry feud with Belichick.
"Terry said, 'If you quit, that's a huge sin,' " his sister says. "It's the same thing he says on the field now, 'You can't catch them all, but you have to keep fighting for that next one.' "
Now he hopes his story of perseverance helps other troubled kids.
"You've just got to be thankful for what you've got and for being alive because there are a lot of people I know who are dead who should be here right now," Glenn says. "I'd tell kids to never quit. What I've learned from all the bad and good, that's what life is.
"I was finally able to handle the positive things, which can be just as hard to handle as the negatives."
Dorothy says: "He's been through all these things, and look where he is. He can go home to his girls, and they are waiting for him at the door ... and that's what really matters."
Glenn smiles. But it is not a boyish smile anymore. It is the hard-won grin of a man in full ? a grin that proves, as his sister says, that a hurting and emotionally fragile 13-year-old boy has gone away at long last.
"Whenever I was going through an issue, something I had to fight through, it was almost like a pass out there in a game," Glenn says. "It's the same way for me in life. If the ball was too easy, coming right at me, those are the ones I drop.
"But if it's thrown up there in the rafters, those are the ones I fight for.
"I want the throws to be difficult."
Contributing: Clarence Hill Jr.
Find this article at:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/footb...nn-cover_x.htm
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