University of South Dakota Head Football Coach Joe Glenn announced his retirement Monday in a press conference held in the Muenster University City on the USD campus.
Glenn, 66, compiled a 200-134-1 record in 28 seasons as a head coach that included stops at Doane, Northern Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota, his alma mater. He is one of 76 coaches in NCAA history to win 200 games.
Glenn led Northern Colorado to back-to-back NCAA Division II National Championships in 1996 and 1997. He compiled a 39-6 record in three seasons with Montana from 2000-02 and led the Griz to an FCS National Championship in 2001. He was 12-34 in four seasons at South Dakota.
“I’m overwhelmed. I think you can see that,” said Glenn in his opening comments to a group of approximately 250 people that included USD faculty, staff, coaches, players, community members and members of the media.
“Thanks to the Davids for their confidence to bring me to Vermillion four years ago when USD was ready to move into the Missouri Valley Football Conference. USD’s move up from Division II to Division I FCS and then to the powerful Missouri Valley Football Conference would be akin to a team from our conference joining the Big Ten.”
The Coyotes finished 5-6 this season – the program’s most wins since 2011 – with the highlight being a 24-21 win against four-time defending national champion North Dakota State in Fargo back on Oct. 17. It ended the Bison’s MVFC record 27-game home winning streak. South Dakota finished with an NCAA SRS of 46 and received votes to the top 25 most of the season.
“I can’t thank Joe enough for everything he’s done for this football program, this department and this University,” said USD Athletic Director David Herbster. “He has brought a life and an energy that is contagious and exemplified in his staff and his players.
“I had seen a change in the character and culture of this team that I would stack against anybody’s in the country. Joe has elevated this program in ways that aren’t easily seen from those outside the department, but I can assure you that what he has done, we should all stand proud to be a Coyote.”
Glenn, the sixth of 12 children, grew up in Lincoln, Neb., and enrolled at USD in the fall of 1967. He played both quarterback and wide receiver for the Coyotes under coach Joe Salem.
Upon graduation in 1971, Glenn served two years as an ROTC officer with the Army. He returned to Vermillion in 1973 to begin work on his master’s degree and was Salem’s backfield coach in 1974.
“After the service, I stayed in touch with coach Salem to come back here and be a graduate assistant coach,” said Glenn. “But they didn’t have any graduate assistant money so I walked on, which was fine.”
When Salem took the head gig at Northern Arizona in 1975, he brought Glenn with him.
With the exception of those two years in the Army, Glenn has been in and around the game of college football for nearly half a century.
