20130620_1024011111.jpg

Former Alabama running back Glen Coffee (right) will graduate today from Airborne School at Fort Benning in Georgia. (Photo provided by Zalman I. Dass)

TUSCALOOSA, Alabama -- The nerves came and went along with the memories.

When former Alabama running back Glen Coffee enlisted in the U.S. Army on Feb. 4, he knew the day would come when he'd have to jump out of a plane. It wasn't something he necessarily wanted to do, but it was simply a hurdle he had to clear on a path that continues to lead him farther and farther away from football.

Ultimately, Coffee said, the best strategy was to think about anything other than jumping out of a plane -- even when it was seconds away from happening.

"You don't remember much of your first jump," Coffee said in a phone interview with AL.com on Thursday. "You remember the wind hitting you, the prop blast and then before you know it, your chute opens up and then you're floating in the air and you're like, 'OK, I could get used to this. I could get the hang of this.'"

Coffee’s demeanor changed with each passing jump. His eyes open wide, Coffee now smiles and laughs when he’s supposed to be counting down from five.

“I can't help it,” he said. “Maybe it's a mechanism to deal with my fear, but it's kind of fun for me now.”

As he talked Thursday, Coffee was moments away from completing his fifth and final jump required to complete Airborne School at Fort Benning in Georgia. He graduates Friday and hopes to be on his way soon to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, where his goal of becoming a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces eventually could be realized.

“I know my motivation and I know my focus,” Coffee said. “I just felt like being in an elite unit would pretty much weed out anybody who didn't have the drive and focus that I believe I have. I feel like if I make it in (Special Forces), that guy to my left and my right is somebody I could depend on with my life and visa versa.”

Glen Coffee ran for 226 yards and a touchdown during his one and only season in the NFL. (AP photo)

Up until a few years ago, when Coffee abruptly retired from the NFL after one season with the San Francisco 49ers, his sole focus, he said, centered on becoming a professional football player. It consumed him so much that it drove him to tears when it appeared he wouldn’t fulfill it.

A knee injury suffered during spring football forced Coffee to redshirt the 2006 season. The idleness drove him nuts.

He remembered one particular night that was tougher than others. Tears flowing from his eyes, Coffee called his mother -- whom Coffee said briefly served in the military before he was born -- and told her he was going to join the military.

“I kind of had a feeling back then that there would really be no civilian job that would give me the satisfaction,” Coffee said. “I actually told them then that I was going to join the military. I didn't want to play football anymore.”

Coffee didn't act on that desire while he was at Alabama. Instead, he returned from his knee injury with a vengeance, running for 545 yards and four touchdowns in 2007, Nick Saban's first season with the Crimson Tide. As a junior, Coffee was the driving force behind an Alabama offense that bulldozed its way to an undefeated regular season. The 6-foot, 210-pound Coffee led the Crimson Tide with 1,383 yards and 10 touchdowns -- a 14-game performance that made his decision to leave with one year of eligibility on the table seem like an easy one.

Coffee might have fallen out of love with football, but he specifically enjoyed what he was doing. He relished the contact and hard hits that came from being running back and the physicality that was required to play it. The competition, both internally and externally, provided a natural high.

Alabama running back Glen Coffee (38) breaks loose for a 41-yard touchdown in the first quarter at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday, Nov. 29, 2008. (Birmingham News/ Mark Almond)

“Just being around other people who were trying to work and trying to get your position because you know that if you slack off, you could be second-string or third-string,” Coffee said. “Just the challenge and competition is what I'm in love with.”

Though Coffee rushed for just 226 yards and a touchdown during his rookie season with the 49ers, his unexpected retirement made national headlines because his reasons were based on his Christian faith. In a 2010 interview with the Mobile Press-Register, Coffee admitted that he regretted leaving Alabama one year earlier than he had to and said he never should have entered the NFL.

"A lot of people aren't going to understand and realize because they don't have the wisdom to understand," Coffee said in 2010. "Their eyes aren't open like mine are open. True happiness is glorifying God and glorifying Christ. That's what true happiness is. ... And for me, that wasn't the NFL. That wasn't where I needed to be."

Months later, Coffee was arrested and charged with possession of a concealed firearm. The charges were later dropped.

In a candid May 2011 interview with the Sacramento Bee, Coffee, who briefly played as a linebacker in a semi-professional football league in Florida, levied harsh criticisms against the NFL, which he said "ruined lives."

"I see football as being the same as being a singer, being a dancer or something along those lines," Coffee told The Bee. "When we fill out our W2s, we're in that category of entertainers, man. That's not me. I want to be doing something to better myself, to better someone else. Glen Coffee's not an entertainer."

Entertainment, though, served as one of the driving forces behind Coffee’s decision to join the Army.

After he parted ways with the 49ers, Coffee moved back to his native Fort Walton Beach, Fla., and picked up boxing, continued speaking at religious events -- something he’d done ever since 2007, when he was baptized -- and finished up his coursework for a degree in consumer affairs. In his spare time, Coffee would often find himself watching all sorts of war-based movies.

"Tears of the Sun," a 2003 movie starring Bruce Willis -- who played the role of a Navy SEAL who led a mission to rescue a doctor and refugees during a Nigerian civil war -- particularly spoke to Coffee.

“I've always considered myself a warrior, somebody who would fight for what he believed in,” he said. “It hit me like, ‘What do you think the military does and what do you think the military is full of? Warriors. All of a sudden, I had this respect for the military and I just realized that there is no America without the men and women who serve this country.

“I figured that if I'm able, the Lord's blessed me with an able body while I'm young, to get out there and get dirty.”

Coffee said he has had no second thoughts and no regrets about his decision to leave the NFL. He eventually wants to become a minister, but considers that to be more of a long-term goal.

In the short-term, Coffee is focused on the next jump.

“I expect it to be the hardest thing I've done in my life physically and mentally,” Coffee said, “but I'm looking forward to the challenge.”