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Mouse fits as
Glanville’s mime

IS this thing on? Good evening, ladies and germs. Welcome to the Mouse Davis comedy hour at the Honolulu Quarterback Club.

Mouse is cooking. His voice booms and the punch lines are knocking 'em down like waves of, well, waves. They're slamming home one after another after another. Crash, crash, crash, in a rhythm, right on time. Don't even try to fight it. Here comes another one. Right on time.

He's got it down now. He's a character, big-time. He calls to mind that assistant coach from "Coach." What was his name? The Jerry Van Dyke character. Luther. Mouse could be Luther. This guy is so much fun.

It's almost enough to forget that he's an all-timer and an innovator and the godfather and a (Portland State) hall of famer. Yes, he's a real football coach, a great one. But this is the offseason, so let's just roll with the show.

And he's off now, flying into his first topic, his newest, craziest colleague on the Hawaii coaching staff. Jerry Glanville.

"He's a giggling man, that boy," Mouse says. Apparently he was on the phone with Glanville just the other day. Somehow Glanville, already back home in Georgia, had gotten them to close the county road and gotten his race car up to 175 mph.

Mouse says, "I said, 'You're crazy! You're going to kill yourself.' You know his answer?" And Mouse does his Glanville voice here: "'I had my helmet on.' "

But Mouse knows we want information, too: "I tell you this. He is a really fine football coach and he will have a very positive effect on defense. In fact he already has a very positive effect on defense at U of H. The kids believe in him, believe in each other, believe in the scheme. And he's only been here through spring ball. So I know that will help.

"Does that mean we will dominate USC in the first game?" Mouse pauses now. "Probably."

A roar.

"And that (Matt) Leinart? That quarterback? You know what he needs? He needs a good," Mouse stops. There are minors in the house. "A good kickin'," Mouse decides.

Why? Just for not knowing a good deal when he sees one.

"Because he should, one of those guys ... he ought to be a millionaire and already be in the NFL and he's coming back for one more year. He's either so wealthy or he doesn't have any common sense, one or the other. So I'm telling our defensive players, this is what we need to do to him. He needs a good I don't know."

Then Mouse slows it down a notch. We need to catch our breath. Some actual football information. He says the offensive line, now in his charge, has at least three "stallions." Then he talks about UH having to break in a new quarterback ...

"Truly, you don't know until the bullets start flying for real," Mouse says. "It's different between dropping back in practice and throwing the ball and throwing the ball with stuff flying around your skin and they're trying to beat you up and do you bodily harm.

"Like we would like to do to Leinart come the first ballgame." Mouse jokes. "He needs bodily harm."

People are howling now. Stomachs are hurting now. We're all at his mercy now. It's the Mouse Davis comedy show.

On an incoming walk-on kicker: "He's got a big leg. He's got a pretty mother. All the important things."

On fielding a phone call from former NFL player Neil Lomax, whose son turned down a recruiting trip to UH to commit to Boise State: "Neil who?"

On Glanville's southern accent, despite growing up in Detroit: "It was south Detroit."

Belly laughs.

So here comes the closer, the slammer, the final crush. He's killing, and it's time to close it out. Don't forget, Mouse is a football coach, so he knows these things. Preparation. Execution. Go hard every time.

So the final story. He and Glanville go out into the nightlife, outside their hotel room homes, mingling with tourists and street performers, taking in the scene.

"We take our stroll down Waikiki every night," Mouse says. "That boy, he can not stop gurgling, he goes on and on and on. And I lead him on, a little.

"So between the two of us we've got our own show going on in Waikiki. He said, 'Here's what we could do! We need to paint you silver and you could be a meem, myah, muh, what do they call those things?' "

"I said 'a MIME,' " Mouse says. A mime.

"Yeah, you could be a mime," Glanville says.

So Mouse comes back with the kicker. "Around you, you need to be a mime."

Boom.

Tip your waitresses. Thank you, everybody. Good night and he's out.