Celebrity Status : Jim Gleed Is Remembered for Record-Setting Game in 1979

MISSION VIEJO —  Jim Gleed leads a rather normal, oatmeal-kind-of-a-life.

At work, he’s a nose-to-the-grindstone type. A hard worker, a real hustler. At play, he surfs, he runs, he has a good time. He also spends quality time with his daughter.

He’s one face among a thousand, maybe a million. A poster boy for anonymity.

Yet, there is one glitch in that ordinary Joe bio. One moment that surfaces from time to time.

“About a month ago, I was at the gym and some guy I didn’t even know stops and says, “Hey, do you still hold the record?’ ” Gleed said.

Ah, the record. The one night that makes Jim Gleed different from every other high school running back who has ever played in Orange County.

On Nov. 18, 1979, Gleed went out to play football for a winless Dana Hills team. He came back a local legend.

He gained 418 yards against Laguna Hills, still a county record. He scored six touchdowns and ran for a two-point conversion, giving him 38 points. He had a game like no one has had in the county, before or since.

It makes him different; it makes him special.

“I think that game altered my life,” Gleed said. “It was a religious experience. Doors opened up for me. I was a superstar overnight.”

Well, a star at least. He rode that for a while.

His football career continued, from Dana Hills to Saddleback College. He finished at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where his career began with a tryout and finished with all-conference honors.

Then it was time to get on with life, time to find a job.

“That’s the only thing I regret,” Gleed said. “I didn’t see myself playing in the pros. I didn’t look past college. I was into school, partying and being the big man on campus.

“I didn’t take myself as serious as I should have. I’m into that now.”

Gleed is serious about cars, or rather servicing them.

He was a car salesman, a job he has had on and off since leaving San Luis Obispo in 1987. It was a hand-to-mouth existence sometimes, living on commission alone.

Now comes some stability. He was promoted to service adviser two weeks ago. A steady job and a regular paycheck.

It was one of many positive markers that have popped up recently.

“I had some problems in my life and I’ve worked them out,” said Gleed, who lives in Mission Viejo. “Everything has been going great. Customers started tipping me. I get this promotion. I found this a great place to live.”

And, strangest of all . . .

“All of a sudden, people are coming up to me and saying, “Aren’t you Jim Gleed, the guy who ran for 400 yards?’ ” he said. “A kid walking by on the street said that the other day. It’s been getting weird. But I have a feeling of euphoria.”

He had it once before.

“It’s been just like that night,” he said.

*

Don DeGroote, former Dana Hills football coach, checks the Southern Section record book every year to see where Gleed stands. He was still sixth in section history for yards in a single game when the 1994 season began.

There was nothing about Gleed to suggest anything special. He was a good player with good speed. Football was important to him, but his life did not revolve around the game.

“He had a surfing class at 7:30 a.m.,” said DeGroote, who resigned as coach in 1981. “I kept telling him, ‘Hey, don’t go surfing.’ But he would anyway. Finally, we agreed he wouldn’t surf on game days.”

There also was nothing about that Dana Hills team to cause concern. The Dolphins had not won a game. The closest they had come was a 7-7 tie with Irvine.

“Laguna Hills tried an onside kick to start the game,” DeGroote said. “I don’t think they respected our offense.”

The Hawks did in the end.

Gleed, then a 5-foot-10, 165-pound junior, scored on a 25-yard run on the game’s third play. He also scored on runs of 1, 2, 85 and 19 yards before being pulled out of the game in the fourth quarter. By then, he had 324 yards.

“I went to the bench and this little voice kept saying, ‘One more play, one more play, “ Gleed said. “It drove me into a frenzy. I ran over to coach and begged him to put me back in.”

When the Dolphins got the ball back, Gleed returned. He went 94 yards on the first play.

“There was one guy right in front of me and he had the angle,” Gleed said. “I just turned it on. I felt his hands slide all the way down my back. I kneeled in the end zone and prayed. It was beautiful.”

The Dolphins won, 54-13. The last run pushed Gleed past La Quinta’s Rick Curry, who gained 326 yards in a 1971 game. Gleed’s six touchdowns are also a county single-game record that he now shares with five others.

Gleed was named high school player of the week by a Los Angeles television station and was awarded the trophy live on TV. He met O.J. Simpson, through his girlfriend, who was Nicole Brown’s sister. He even spent a weekend at Simpson’s home in Brentwood.

Heady stuff for a kid who had gained only 465 yards in the eight previous games.

“I never let it go to my head,” Gleed said. “I was never into that macho stuff anyway. But now colleges were sending me letters, wanting to take a look at me. People knew who I was. I had the best-looking girlfriends. Everything came in a rush.”

It didn’t ebb, not right away.

Gleed gained 1,113 yards as a senior. Dana Hills won its first four games, then collapsed, finishing 4-6. Still, Gleed had the offers, but he didn’t have the grades.

He played two seasons at Saddleback. In 1982, he led the Gauchos in rushing with 576 yards while sharing the tailback spot with Robert Currie.

“We had a saying, ‘Robert Currie runs in a hurry and Jim Gleed runs with speed,’ ” Gaucho assistant coach Don Butcher said. “He was fast.”

But he wasn’t wanted, not anymore. Gleed had to persuade a school to take him.

He walked on at San Luis Obispo. Gleed said he told Coach Jim Sanderson that he would try out. If Sanderson liked him, he would give him a scholarship. If he didn’t, Gleed wouldn’t play.

“But I told him I was going to be his starting tailback,” Gleed said.

Gleed played at San Luis Obispo in 1985-86. As junior, he gained 234 yards in a 34-28 victory over North Dakota State, which won the Division II championship that year. Gleed finished the season with 814 yards and eight touchdowns.

The next season, Gleed gained 591 yards and scored three touchdowns. He was first-team All-California Collegiate Athletic Assn. for the second consecutive year.

Then it ended.

“I had a few pro teams come in and time me,” Gleed said. “I was invited to some tryouts, but I couldn’t do it. I had to survive.”

Jeff Gleed, his father, lost a bundle in the 1987 stock market crash. Gleed had to find a job.

He started selling cars.

*

Gleed stays up on Orange County high school football. One category in particular.

“The Droughns kid nearly got me last year,” Gleed said.

Reuben Droughns, Anaheim’s junior running back, gained 361 yards against El Monte Arroyo last season. He was the latest to get within eyesight of Gleed’s record.

Fifteen players have run for better than 300 yards since Gleed set the record, but like that night, no one can catch him.

Gleed’s life has meandered since he stopped playing football. He was a social science and business organization major at San Luis Obispo. But Gleed said he could not afford to do the research to complete the 50-page thesis needed to receive his degree.

His only income was from car sales from a small dealership. He would get between $50 to $500 per sale.

“I was moving six or seven cars a month, which is nothing in the business,” Gleed said.

Gleed went into mortgage banking with his brother in Rhode Island, but the bottom fell out of the market after two years. He returned to California in 1990 and went back to selling cars.

He married three years ago. He is separated from his wife but hopes for a reconciliation. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Jordan, whom Gleed beams about.

Gleed runs each day, often to the Saddleback College football field, which is near his residence. He’ll stop at the football field, watch practice and remember. Then he heads home.

“I can’t complain,” Gleed said. “I got to play college football. How many people can say that? I thank God for giving me the chance. But if I had to do it all over again, I’d take it more serious. I’d kill to be able to put the pads on and play one more game.”

Grinding It Out

The top one-game high school rushing performances in Orange County history:

1. Jim Gleed (Dana Hills), 1979, 418 yards.

2. Reuben Droughns (Anaheim), 1993, 361 yards.

3. Mike Miscione (Esperanza), 1986, 348 yards.

4. Dana Riddle (Rancho Alamitos), 1989, 344 yards.

5. Mike Jacot (Southern California Christian), 1992, 342 yards.