The hiring of Marshall “Little Sleepy” Glenn to coach the West Virginia University football team in 1937 followed roughly the same pattern athletic director Harry Stansbury had intentionally or unintentionally fallen into since Dr. Clarence Spears left to take the Minnesota job in the summer of 1925 – interview coaches with some sort of West Virginia tie who was willing to work for a modest salary.
Glenn, the school’s basketball coach who also doubled as the freshman football coach, certainly fit the bill.
He was offered $6,000 for his seven-month stint as the school’s football/basketball coach with part of his arrangement including the continuation of his studies at Rush College to complete requirements for a medical degree.
Glenn followed his older brother Albert “Big Sleepy” Glenn to West Virginia in 1926 after excelling in football, basketball and track at Elkins High in Elkins, West Virginia. Glenn’s nickname “Little Sleepy” was the result of his older brother Albert often dozing off in class because he was required to work nights as a call boy for a local railroad company to help support the family. When Sleepy came along and excelled in sports just as Albert did, Albert became known as “Big Sleepy” while Marshall was known as “Little Sleepy.”
Marshall turned out to be the better athlete of the two and is considered among West Virginia University’s greatest all-around athletes.
As a football player he called the signals, blocked and caught passes on offense, was a sure-handed tackler on defense and kicked field goals and extra points for Coach Ira Errett Rodgers’ teams of 1927, 1928 and 1929. He played a key role in West Virginia’s 9-6 upset victory at Pitt which was regarded as one of the great wins of that era.
In basketball, Glenn was regarded as the equal to Pitt All-American player Charley Hyatt and ranked among the top scorers in the Tri-State area. He was also one of the area’s top hurdlers in track and also played on the Mountaineer baseball team.
Following graduation, Glenn spent a year at WVU working as a student coach for Greasy Neale in the fall and serving as freshman basketball coach during the winter. A year later, he accepted a position at Martinsburg High to coach all sports - a post he held for two years before returning to WVU to become the school’s varsity basketball coach.
Glenn achieved immediate success in basketball with the Mountaineers winning 14 of 19 games his first year in 1934, and then improving to 16-6 the following year. He spent a total of five years as West Virginia’s varsity basketball coach from 1934-38, accumulating a 61-46 record during that time.
In the meantime, Glenn was offered the football job in 1937, succeeding Charles “Trusty” Tallman when he resigned to accept an appointment to head the West Virginia state police. Glenn inherited a strong team from Tallman and used a couple of visits with Chicago Bears coach George Halas while in Chicago attending medical school to learn Halas’ famous T offense, which he used at West Virginia.
In 1937, Glenn had the players at West Virginia to make the T successful, namely speedy backs Harry “Flash” Clarke, David Isaac and Sam Pinion, a powerful, straight-ahead runner in Sam Audia, and a capable passer in Kelly Moan.
With the exception of a 20-0 loss to undefeated Pitt (the Panthers’ only blemish being a scoreless tie against Fordham) and 6-6 tie to Georgetown, Glenn’s Mountaineers ran the table against a somewhat weak schedule that included victories over West Virginia Wesleyan, Washington & Lee, Xavier, Western Maryland and George Washington.
However, an impressive 34-0 home win over Clarence Spears’ strong Toledo team got the attention of the Sun Bowl, which extended an invitation to West Virginia following its 26-0 home victory over George Washington to conclude the regular season.
It was just the school’s second-ever bowl appearance, the first coming 15 years prior in 1922.
Glenn took the Mountaineers out to El Paso, Texas for nine days of training before defeating Texas Tech, 7-6, to earn the Mountaineers national attention. The game was decided in the second quarter when both teams scored touchdowns, West Virginia’s coming on an eight-yard run by David Isaac and Texas Tech’s the result of a Charley Calhoun two-yard run. The difference was Kelly Moan’s successful conversion kick.
Clarke was the star of the game, rushing for 132 yards on 26 carries to finish the season as the school’s most prolific runner with 956 yards on 221 attempts. He was back for the 1938 season, but most of the guys blocking for Clarke weren’t. Glenn’s record slipped to 4-5-1 that season as the schedule became more difficult and his off-season medical studies were requiring more of his time.
Glenn canceled spring football practice in 1938 so he could get an early start on his medical school work, and the team’s decline continued in 1939 with a 2-6-1 record. West Virginia scored just 26 points over its remaining eight games as it became apparent that Glenn was going to resign his post at the conclusion of the season and team morale sank. He made it official in a letter to the Board of Governors after West Virginia’s season-ending loss to George Washington, 13-0, leaving Glenn’s three-year record at 14-12-3.
Following military service during World War II, Glenn established a medical practice in Charles Town, West Virginia, and later was owner-operator of Sleepy Hollow Golf Course, which he built on his family farm just north of Charles Town.
Glenn died as a result from injuries sustained in an automobile accident near his home on Oct. 11, 1983 at age 75.
