Bill Schnier wrote this moving comment about Harvey Glance and his coach /mentor Mel Rosen at Auburn. This is followed by the USATF report about Mr. Glance's history. George
So sorry to hear about the death of Harvey Glance. He was a fine person and one who ran during my early days of coaching. His first Olympic Games took place during our honeymoon to Montreal in 1976 and he continued to compete for a long time, quite unusual for a sprinter. He eventually switched to coaching, doing equally well in that profession. He served as sprint and hurdle coach in 2008 when David Payne and Mary Wineberg captured Olympic medals in Beijing. He was short and extremely explosive, the perfect person to lead off relays.
I got to know his coach, Mel Rosen, when we both were clinicians at the Olympic Development Clinic in 1979 at the University of Rhode Island, the week Lorraine was born in Bloomington. Mel was a truly humorous person who described himself as a small Jewish man from Brooklyn who was living in a small Southern town. Mel was always so kind to me but then he was the same way to everyone. The combination of Harvey Glance, Mel Rosen, and many others made Auburn a major T&F power for a long time. They will both be missed.
And a really nice memory from Geoff Pietsch in Florida:
I have a still vivid memory of Harvey Glance from the 1976 Olympic Trials. At midweek, at a quiet moment several minutes before the 200 meter heats began, I was sitting in Hayward Field's East Grandstand midway on the backstretch. Harvey Glance, in his sweats, walked by, heading towards the 200 meter start. The moderate crowd began to applaud. Glance looked around in obvious puzzlement, clearly wondering what was going on that they were applauding. And then the realization clearly hit him. These knowledgeable Hayward Field Track fans were applauding to honor him for winning the 100 meter Trials. He was an underdog in the 100. A very young sprinter, just emerging. But they knew who he was. And what he had accomplished. And clearly it touched him.
USATF MOURNS PASSING OF OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST HARVEY GLANCE
Olympic gold medalist and World Championships men's head coach Harvey Glance died June 12th after suffering a heart attack earlier in the week. He was 66.
Glance was one of the top sprinters of his era and twice tied the world record in the 100 meters with 9.9 clockings in 1976. He ran the leadoff leg on the U.S. 4x100m relay that won gold at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, and 11 years later in Rome he ran the opening leg on the victorious Team USATF 4x100m relay squad at the World Championships.
A high school star at Phenix City (Alabama) Central, Glance won three events at the 1975 Alabama 4A State Meet, setting state records in all three. Less than two days after that triple victory he signed with Auburn University and legendary head coach Mel Rosen. That turned out to be one of Rosen's best signings ever, as the young star sprinted to NCAA indoor gold in the 60 yard dash as a freshman and then captured double gold in the 100m and 200m at the NCAA outdoor championships.
Two weeks later, the 19-year-old Glance surged past Houston McTear halfway through the 100m final at the U.S. Olympic Trials in Eugene, winning in 10.11 to earn his first international team berth. In Montreal, Glance won his heats in the first three rounds of the 100m but was unable to catch eventual champion Hasely Crawford of Trinidad in the final and had to settle for fourth. That energized him for the relay, and the United States quartet of Glance, Johnny Jones, Millard Hampton and Steve Riddick romped to a convincing win in 38.33 over East Germany and the Soviet Union.
Repeating as NCAA 100m champion in 1977, Glance also picked up bronze medals in that event at the 1978 and 1979 meets. He also anchored the Auburn foursome to runner-up finishes in the 4x100m relay in 1978 and 1979. After finishing. his Auburn career, Glance earned silver in the 100m at the 1979 Pan American Games and ran the second leg on the U.S. 4x100m relay that took gold.
At the 1980 Olympic Trials, with nothing on the line but pride due to the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games, Glance took second in the 100m in 10.27, just .01 behind Auburn's new star dashman, Stanley Floyd. That summer, Glance helped the U.S. all-star team to wins against Japan and China in dual meets.
Four years later, Glance once again made a bid for the Olympic team at Los Angeles, finishing seventh in the 100m in a strong headwind in the Coliseum. Always a reliable relay man, Glance ran leadoff for the winning U.S. 4x100m team at the 1985 World Cup and took on third-leg duties for the victorious Goodwill Games squad in 1986. he capped off his career with relay golds at the 1987 Pan American Games and World Championships.
Moving into coaching after his retirement from competition, Glance took over as head men's and women's coach at his alma mater from 1991-96, and then moved to archrival Alabama in 1997, heading the men's program until his retirement in 2011. He led the Crimson Tide to an NCAA Indoor Championships runner-up team finish in 2002 and produced a slew of all-Americans and SEC contenders during his tenure.
Along the way, Glance became a respected international coach and administrator, serving as head men's coach for Team USATF at the 1999 Pan American Games and then as head men's coach at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin. He also served as a men's assistant coach for the 2008 Olympic team covering the sprints and hurdles and was an assistant men's coach at the 2006 World Junior (U20) Championships.
Continuing to coach one of his greatest Alabama athletes after retiring from the university, Glance guided Kirani James of Grenada to Olympic gold in the 400m in 2012 after winning the World Championships in 2011. James also earned silver in the 400m at the 2016 Games and bronze at Tokyo in 2021 and was the silver medalist last summer at the World Championships in Eugene.
Glance was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1996. He is survived by his wife, Booker Lynne Graves, and one son, Walter.
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