Remembering Glenn and searching for a silver lining

By now, most readers of this blog have probably heard of the passing of Marist’s longtime coordinator of sports medicine (head athletic trainer) Glenn Marinelli late last week at the way-too-young age of 56. Glenn valiantly battled brain cancer for the better part of the past three years. While his passing was not surprising given the extreme uphill battle he was facing, the deep sadness that accompanies it is very, very real. I was talking to someone who knows and loves Glenn very much last night, someone who has spent time with his grieving family, and she said to me: “I’m just trying to find the silver lining in all of this. Where is the silver lining in all of this?” A healthy guy who took good care of himself, a loyal and loving husband for 30 years, with three children of whom he was so proud … it’s just so normal to ask why, isn’t it?

Glenn touched so many athletes’ lives through the years. He was especially close with the men’s basketball and football teams, with whom he traveled for decade after decade. But really, Glenn was a friend to all athletes and everyone around the McCann Center. Nothing but kind words continue to be uttered for this great man, who was taken from our midst far too early.

I have so many memories of Glenn that they may be too vast to share in the space of one blog post. I will try to gather some thoughts here now …

As I was so quoted at GoredFoxes.com, Glenn was my trainer when I arrived on campus back in 1982 as a skinny and scared freshman. Glenn was an active runner, having completed the 1982 and 1983 Boston Marathons. And remember, I had only started running my junior year in high school, so I was new to all the pitfalls of our sport as I embarked on high mileage training for the first time in my life. Glenn guided me through the blisters (he popped many of my ugly blisters back then!), the sore muscles and tendons, the achy knees.

The term “bedside manner” is often referred to with doctors. Glenn was affectionately known as “Doc” around McCann, and his bedside manner with all the athletes and staff members he treated was unparalleled. Whether he was taping your ankle or Achilles tendon, applying stim or ultrasound, or just listening to another endless case of knee tendonitis, Glenn listened and Glenn cared. He was never rushed with you, and he always remembered to ask how you were doing the next time he saw you. Although most of the time it was the commonsense “ice it a lot tonight,” or “heat that knee before you run, and grab a bag of ice for later,” coming from Glenn gave it extra credence and somehow just made you feel better.

When I was a young sportswriter at the Poughkeepsie Journal, I remember hanging out with Glenn at the Junior Davis Cup tennis tournament one endless summer afternoon in 1986 at the tony Poughkeepsie Tennis Club. Glenn was working the tournament as a side gig for extra money, and I was assigned to cover it as one of my first jobs as a full-time journalist. We spent most of the afternoon together, talking about anything else but the tennis matches we were watching.

As I got to be older, I became a colleague and coworker when I was hired to coach at Marist in 1991, and we saw each other pretty much every day around McCann. When I ventured into the curious world of ultramarathons in the mid-1990s, Glenn was there to calm my fears of torn meniscus in my always sore knees – he said there might be tears in there all right, but as long as it doesn’t bother me too much to keep running … what great advice!

One time, when this klutzy coach tripped on the sidewalk and fell hard on my shoulder during an early morning run, Glenn was there later that day to apply ice and stim and give me an analysis of the grim situation – free of charge, free of hurry and best of all free of judgment. He surmised that I had probably torn my rotator cuff, but as he said, “unless you are going to be in the starting rotation for the Yankees, there is no need to get it surgically repaired.” We always joked about the time that he put the stim on that bum shoulder, told me to take it off after 15 minutes, and I forgot to do it while he went out for a run – leaving burn marks all over my shoulders!

Although Glenn was most often out with the football team or in McCann with the basketball team, his increasing role on the academic side of things made him a big part of our program. He was the one who approved the little known special topics 2-credit course called “Track and Field Coaching,” which I have been teaching on and off for close to a decade. He became close with our Athletic Training majors, a field of study he helped to start at Marist. Several of our track alums have forged successful careers in the AT world, and they view Glenn as an important mentor and role model in their lives.

Even as this damn disease started to ravage his body in recent months, Glenn would always sit and talk with me about the old times. He loved reminiscing about my early days as a coach, when I had really long hair, and certain academic administrators on campus didn’t like that. We reminisced about my crazy college coach back in the mid-1980s – Glenn was one of the few guys in the building that actually remembered him and his insane antics.

Over the past year, as his mobility slowed and his unsteadiness increased, Glenn continued to come into work. He was bundled up like it was midwinter even while indoors, as the disease and the meds he was on made him constantly feeling chilled. Unless he was down at Sloan for treatment, Glenn was still coming into his office to work each and every morning. He was an inspiration to us all, and his wife said his coming to work each day improved the quality of his life.

As I would make my inevitable walks to the men’s room each morning, I would always pop my head into Glenn’s office. When the light was on and he was in there, my day would brighten as we would sit there and shoot the breeze for a few minutes about the past and present. When the light was off and the door was shut, my heart sank as I thought of him enduring more treatment down in the city or elsewhere.

His prognosis was grim from the start, and he outlasted numerous dire predictions by the doctors. I never once heard him complain. Never. Once. Instead, in fact, he did exactly the opposite of this: He posted inspirational messages on the doors and the walls of the training room, and he spread those messages to teams (including ours) before MAAC Championships. His motto “Never Give Up, Never Surrender” is permanently plastered on the wall of the training room for all to see, a lasting legacy of a great man and a good man.