Glenn’s dream finally at end
ALEX Glenn defied all sorts of odds to live out his professional sporting dream at the Brisbane Broncos.
At 19, he famously hung up on Wayne Bennett, the greatest coach in NRL history.
Bennett merely chuckled, forgave the innocent teen, called again, and signed him to his first Broncos contract.
Three years earlier, battling serious back pain, a medical professional told Glenn he was one misjudged tackle away from life in a wheelchair.
There was never any quit in the kid whose constitution was too strong to be seduced by a life of gangs and crime in the Auckland suburb of Beach Haven.
The Broncos captain drew the curtain on his remarkable 13-season NRL career at Red Hill on Thursday.
Glenn was a man of steel on the field but showed he was a sensitive soul off it, breaking down and wiping away tears as he looked to his wife Jemma and their three children, Miller, Gisele and Oakley.
Glenn had his heart set on cracking the big league.
“I remember in primary school in Beach Haven in Auckland, our teacher asked us, ‘What do you want to be growing up’ and I always wanted to be a professional athlete,” Glenn said. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would fulfil a dream that I wrote out on that piece of paper.”
The major ruction came when Glenn was just 16. His back injury was so crippling he took a three-year break from rugby league.
“It was pretty bad, I saw a chiropractor,” he recalls.
“We got some scans done and he said if I got caught in a bad tackle and landed in the wrong spot, there was a high chance I would be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life.”
His back injury healed, Glenn took up park football with his mates at Burleigh.
“I was painting residential houses and I got a call from Wayne Bennett. I thought it was someone geeing me up from the Broncos, so I hung up on Wayne the first time.
“I don’t think that has happened before. He rang me straight back and said, ‘Mate I’m being honest, this is Wayne Bennett’.”
By the age of 22, he was Brisbane’s youngest captain.
A veteran of 12 Tests for New Zealand, he plays his 283rd NRL game this Sunday against the Warriors. If he stays fit, he will finish with 285 games and walk into the sunset as the fourth most-capped Bronco in history.
“He has given nothing but his all for the club,” Broncos coach Kevin Walters said.
Glenn will move into a fulltime ambassadorial role working with kids next season.