4 minute read
D.J. Glynn
HALL
SUBMITTED PHOTOS
Accomplishments
• A 1999 Hall High School graduate, Glynn won seven
IHSA State Track and Field medals during his prep career • Won four Class A state titles (100 meter, 200 meter, 400 meter and the high jump) in 1999 and helped Hall to a Class
A second-place team finish • Holds three NewsTribune all-time area records (100, 200 and 400), which is the most by a male athlete • A three-year starter on the
Red Devil football team, he was a member of the 1996 state runner-up team • Ran for 1,709 carries and 8.5 yards per carry his senior season
By Brandon LaChance
When you think of the name D.J. Glynn, track and field is the first connection.
However, it isn’t if you ask the Hall Class of 1999 graduate because football is his first love. “Ever since I was a little kid and I saw the captain pictures – all the guys who played before us – in the grade school and I said, ‘I want to be on that poster one day,’” said Glynn. “I wanted to be a Red Devil football captain and I wanted to be a starting running back. Football in that era, football was everything in Spring Valley. It’s the brotherhood. You go through the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the blood, sweat and tears together as a family. It’s discipline, hard work and it’s not easy. Life is not easy. NOW WHERE are they
“If you can make it through football, you can excel in life. There are way more life lessons in football than people realize. You go in as a young kid wanting to play ball, but you come out as young men. You learn how to work together and to have your brother’s back. It’s an incredible atmosphere.”
Glynn was a three-year starter for the Red Devil football team, was a sophomore on the 1996 state-runner up team and led the 1997
team to the semifinals.
As a senior, he ran for 1,709 yards on 200 carries for 8.5 yards per carry. Glynn will tell you to this day he had the best linemen ever. They helped him realize how fast he was just like track opponents.
“To be fast is one thing, but it takes fast people to make you even faster. It takes people to push you. It’s guys even from other schools that you run next to on the track that make you better,” Glynn said. “I knew I was fast as a freshman and I was on the varsity relay team. Going into my junior year, I was returning kicks and if I had an opening – I was gone. By Week 3 of my senior year, I really learned how to be a running back and read the blocks and the linemen. If I got to the second level, I was gone and dared people to catch me. I was like, ‘Wow, all the weight lifting really paid off.”
Although football is Glynn’s first love, track is where the championships came.
Track is also where Glynn became an obvious inductee for the NewsTribune’s Illinois Valley Sports Hall of Fame.
In his four years, Glynn won seven IHSA State Meet medals. However, if you were at Eastern Illinois University in 1999, you saw the senior do something special as he won four Class A state titles (100-meter, 200, 400 and high jump) while helping Hall finish second as a team.
Glynn had 40 of the Red Devils 45 points.
“The Hall of Fame is a milestone of the hard work, effort, determination and the willingness to not give up,” Glynn said. “It’s proof of what shows from hard work. All those hours from 3:30-8 p.m. training, lifting and practice after everyone else went home. I guess I made up my mind after junior year. I told myself, ‘I’m coming back to state and I’m winning everything.’”
The Red Devil alum is the only male athlete to hold three NewsTribune all-time records as his name still sits next to the fastest 100, 200 and 400.
After high school, Glynn became a truck driver who also partakes in demolition and large equipment side jobs. He is currently working on 2.4 million miles on a truck during 22 years on the road.
When he is not on the road, he is enjoying life with his wife of 16 years, Elizabeth, and their three children Landon (15), Dylan (13) and Eli Mae (9).
“I’m happy with my life,” Glynn said. “You can have all of the fame and fortune in the world and all the money, but what I have with my wife, my kids, my family, my friend family, money can’t buy that. Fame can’t take the place of that. I’m completely happy with the way my life has turned out.
“The struggles a young, married couple goes through with finances, it’s all come around where life and finances are easy. My wife is a nurse. We work great together. My kids have a good life. I’m content.”
It has all come full circle as those very lessons he learned on the football field carried over to his family and to his profession.
“I’ve been kicked down so many times in life. It would have been easy to give up and walk away. I could have quit and thrown in the towel,” Glynn said. “I was too stubborn to give up and too determined to quit. I jumped back up. It’s not about how many times you get knocked down, it’s about how quick you get back up.
“That’s the same thing on the football field. You get knocked down, jump back up and say, ‘Give me some more.’”
Congratulations HallAlumnus DJ Glynn
