Ray Mickens is in full agreement with all his former teammates about the choice of Aaron Glenn as the Jets' new head coach. And that's saying something, since Mickens goes back farther with Glenn than all those other players who have voiced their hearty approval of AG this week.
"I played with Aaron in college," Mickens told newyorkjets.com, hearkening back to their two seasons at Texas A&M in 1992-93. "He came in from a juco and started at the bottom. So the path he's taken to be a head coach, you can only respect that, you have to give that some value in the way he's done it. No nepotism, no 'he's in New York just because he's a former player,' none of that. He started from scratch."
Mickens said Glenn helped him prepare for his pro career even before the two DBs left College Station.
"He's responsible for a lot of things in my career," Mickens said. "He's a two-time All-American and I'm starting opposite him. Guess where all the balls will never be. I was making plays only because he was so good that they wouldn't throw his way, so that helped me out in my career. He showed me how to be a pro, how to approach the game as a pro, and where's at now, I could see that back when he was a player."
After his two Aggies seasons, Glenn was selected 12th overall by the Jets in the 1994 NFL Draft. The two corners were reunited when the Jets picked Mickens in the third round of the '96 draft. Beginning the next season, with the installation of Bill Parcells as head coach and Bill Belichick as defensive coordinator, Mickens saw another manifestation of the AG focus on the present and the future.
"He made me better as a player, as a student of the game," he recalled. "Belichick made us do these players-only film sessions, and Aaron just stepped up and led them all. I knew he was going to be a leader."
The duo climbed different leadership ladders after the Jets. Glenn played seven more seasons after his eight Jets seasons, then returned to the Green & White in 2012 as a scout, then started on his coaching path with the Browns in '14.
Mickens stayed with the Jets until '03, played two more seasons, then headed into business. In 2018, he told newyorkjets.com's Jim Gehman that he got started in an airport food kiosk in Philadelphia. Now he's a food-and-beverage titan with Chick-fil-A, Qdoba Mexican Grill, Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bagel plus other franchises that he operates at Dallas-Fort Worth and other airports.
But Ray never lost sight of his good friend's growth on his own chosen road. A dozen years ago, he remembers Glenn stopping by his Dallas home on his way to scouting trips at small colleges in Oklahoma and Iowa — "He put at least 100,000 miles on that little Ford Expedition of his." (Or was it a Honda Accord, as Glenn said at his Monday news converence?)
And contemplating how Glenn's coaching profile grew through his four seasons as the Lions' DC, Mickens has no doubt Glenn will take the Jets and the Green & White faithful by storm.
"I think that Aaron's the perfect fit," he said. "He knows the area, he's familiar with the ownership, the ownership is familiar with him. And he knows the fan base, more importantly, and the fan base knows him. I tell people all the time, you have to be built different to be successful in New York as a player or as a coach. I think Aaron is built for New York. So he's a perfect fit for the situation and the environment."
And Mickens can't help but get a little emotional about how far his great friend has come since they first got together in the early Nineties deep in the heart of Texas.
"It's very touching to me," he said. "I'm really so happy for him, for his family for his wife, Devaney. I'm just happy for all of 'em, to get to where he is today. And I know he's not celebrating. I know right now he's hard at work. That's how he approached the game. He would never celebrate a great game, an interception. He'd always move on to the next thing."
Glenn's latest move has Mickens and all the rest of his family of Jets teammates and many Green & White fans beaming with pride and happiness over having been there from the beginning.
