Dennis Green
football coach
Personal Information
Born on February 17, 1949, in Harrisburg, PA; son of Penrose (a postal worker) and Anna (a beautician) Green; married Margie Shindler, c. 1967; children: Patti, Jeremy
Education: University of Iowa, BS, 1971.
Career
Professional player/coach, British Columbia Lions (Canadian Football League), 1971; worked for a sheet metal shop in Iowa City and as a volunteer assistant coach at the University of Iowa, 1972; running backs and receivers coach, University of Dayton, 1973; receivers coach, University of Iowa, 1974-76; running backs coach, Stanford University, 1977-78; special teams coach, San Francisco 49ers, 1979; offensive coordinator, Stanford University, 1980; head coach, Northwestern University, 1981-85; wide receivers coach, San Francisco 49ers, 1986-88; head coach, Stanford University, 1989-92; head coach, Minnesota Vikings, 1992-2002; head coach, Arizona Cardinals, 2004-.
Life's Work
Dennis Green assumed head coaching responsibilities for the Minnesota Vikings early in 1992. Only the second black head coach in modern professional football, he brings a wealth of experience to the Vikings, a franchise in need of a strong leader. Few would argue that Green's ascent in the National Football League (NFL) has anything to do with his race--he has worked his entire professional life as either an assistant or head coach for a number of teams, including the difficult programs of Northwestern University and Stanford. His career includes long periods of association with legendary San Francisco 49ers coach Bill Walsh, and he is credited with developing the talents of future Football Hall of Famer Jerry Rice. Minneapolis/St. Paul Star Tribune reporter Steve Aschburner pointed out that Green "is known as a hard worker and a fair man but one who expects most of a player's motivation to come from within.... And he has a habit of taking on tasks that others might have considered overwhelming."
A high-energy, hardworking optimist, Green predicted that he would take the lackluster Vikings to the 1992 playoffs, and he did just that. Aschburner noted: "If Dennis Green were a doctor, he would work in an intensive care unit. The man has shown an ability, and a willingness, to pump life into the most ailing, weakened football operations. Where others might have pulled plugs, he has ordered transfusions. Only St. Jude has taken on more lost causes than Green." And San Jose Mercury News correspondent Nancy Gay maintained that Green is absolutely consumed by "the Herculean job he [was] hired to do--whipping the Vikings, a legendary band of underachieving malcontents, into contenders."
For his own part, Green told the San Jose Mercury News that he sees no task as impossible, especially in football. "Very few guys think there's a job they can't do. No matter how big the obstacles," he said. "If there's one way to sum up myself, I just like to get the job done. I don't care if I'm coaching receivers or whatever, I'm going to take the responsibility to make sure our guys do right." Asked about how his race has shaped his career, Green told the Star Tribune: "I don't think anybody considers me a black coach. I don't think a player is concerned what my race is. I think he wants someone who will teach him something."
Excelled Despite Tragedy
"I see challenges, even problems, as opportunities," Green explained in the Star Tribune. Even the most overwhelming coaching obstacles seem insignificant to a man who has experienced some of life's more lasting misfortunes. Green was born and raised in a blue-collar section of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His father was a postal worker and his mother a beautician. "We didn't live in the projects," he remembered, "but we lived where people who had just moved from the projects lived." Tragedy struck when Green was still a boy. His father died of a ruptured appendix in 1960, and then--only two years later--his mother succumbed to cancer.
Even though he lost both parents by the time he was thirteen, Green carried their lessons of integrity and discipline with him into adulthood. He told the Star Tribune that his father "was a special guy who was his own man. I don't think there was ever a time when he felt like he was going to take any crap out of anybody. I'd say he had a lot of pride in that.... His pride always came first."
For the remainder of his school years, Green lived with an older brother who left the U.S. Air Force in order to care for the family. By that time, football was a strong lure for Green. He recalled in the Star Tribune that he admired the players who were ahead of him in school and sought to be like them. "Everybody respected them," he said. "In contrast to all the guys who talked a good game, they actually went to practice. They were doing something significant." When he joined the varsity squad at John Harris High School, he added, the coaches "instilled the love of football in me. They said, 'This is football and we're going to do this better than anybody.' It didn't matter whose dad had a job and whose didn't. It didn't matter if you could afford new clothes. We were a football team."
Football competition is especially fierce in central Pennsylvania, and college recruiters find it a fertile talent pool. Green was recruited by Frank Gilliam, a football staff member from the University of Iowa who went on to become director of player personnel for the Minnesota Vikings. Asked to describe the teenaged Dennis Green for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Gilliam noted that the future coach was "a hard-nosed, tough slashing running back whose personality was straight forward and eager. Playing football was very important to him." Even as a youth, Green perceived that he would have opportunities denied his grandfather and father, and even his older brothers. "I'm a product of the '60s. I graduated from high school in 1967.... It was...a window of opportunity. If you were a black athlete and you took care of business, you could go to school anywhere you wanted." Green told Rick Telander in Sports Illustrated. Green made the most of that "window of opportunity" at each step of his career.
Green was a three-year starter for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes, playing two seasons at tailback and one at flanker. Gilliam, who was Iowa's assistant coach during those years, told the Star Tribune: "[Green] blocked, he ran, he was real versatile. I can't say I knew then he'd be a coach, but he approached the game real seriously." Green graduated from Iowa in 1971 with a degree in recreation education. His only stint as a professional football player came later that year with the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League. Even there he showed his budding talents for coaching. He left the Lions after one season.
Green returned to the University of Iowa as a volunteer graduate assistant to the football program. To support his wife and two children, he took a full-time job driving a truck for a sheet metal business. By 1973 he landed a paying post within collegiate football that made other work unnecessary. He became coach of running backs and receivers at the University of Dayton. After a year there, he went back to Iowa, this time as receivers coach.
In 1977 Green was invited to join the football coaching staff at Stanford University. The head coach at that time was Bill Walsh, a man who would soon become world-famous for his work with the San Francisco 49ers. Even in his Stanford days, Walsh was careful to surround himself with people who were as dedicated and hardworking as he was. He and Green worked very well together--so well that when Walsh was called to coach the 49ers in 1979, he took Green along to lead the special teams unit. At the tender age of thirty--younger, indeed, than some of the players--Green found himself coaching in the NFL.
Became Head Coach at Northwestern University
Greater responsibilities beckoned Green back to the college ranks in 1980. He became offensive coordinator at Stanford under Paul Wiggin, serving in that position for one year. In 1981, Green was offered his first head coaching job. Northwestern University, a school that hadn't won a conference game in five years, presented the challenge of a lifetime to the fledgling coach. As part of the Big Ten, hapless Northwestern played regularly against football giants like the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, and the University of Illinois. Green was realistic: he knew he could not turn Northwestern into a giant, but he saw room in the program for vast improvement. He accepted the job and became the first black coach in Big Ten history.
When Green arrived at Northwestern, the team had won only three of its last 75 games. In his first year coaching the team, Northwestern continued its losing ways, but in 1982 he guided the squad to three victories. That feat was enough to earn him the Big Ten "coach of the year" award in 1982. His fellow Big Ten coaches saw in Northwestern's modest gains nothing less than a major turnaround. And while Green was not able to build further on those gains, he did bring Northwestern more victories in his five seasons there than the team had in recent history. By the end of the 1985 season Northwestern had a 10-45 record under Green.
Walsh beckoned Green back to the professional ranks in 1986. Green rejoined the 49ers, this time as wide receivers coach. Walsh had one prospect in particular that he wanted Green to tutor--a young player named Jerry Rice. St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter Ray Richardson noted that Green "played a key role in the development of one of the best wide receivers ever to wear an NFL uniform," namely Rice. Green and Rice worked together closely, and Rice leaped into national notoriety for his stellar performance in the 49ers' offense. "I would say he taught me everything I know," Rice recalled in the St. Paul Pioneer Press. "When he told me something I was doing wrong, it was only because he wanted me to get better, and it's paying off for me now."
In 1989, Stanford University offered Green the head coaching job that had once been Walsh's. The salary for the three-year contract was reported to be $200,000 per year. San Jose Mercury News correspondent Mark Purdy heralded Green's choice as "the best for Stanford" and added: "Here is an intelligent, glib, 39-year-old who's had the world by the tail for most of his life.... Green doesn't deserve this job because he's black. He deserves this job because his background proves he's capable of handling any mine field you can erect in his path." During his first months on the job, Green was faced with a player revolt that had ousted his predecessor, demands by disgruntled alumni, and challenges to find top-rank players who could satisfy Stanford's tough admission requirements. He also had to assemble a staff of nine assistants--all before his team played a single game.
Similarities abound between the programs at Northwestern and Stanford. Both colleges put a premium on academics, allowing only the best scholar-athletes to attend. Even so they attract promising players who can, under the right guidance, perform at high levels. Green let it be known at Stanford that he expected top-level play from his team. Slowly the Cardinals began to improve. After finishing 3-8 in 1989, they went 5-6 in 1990 and 8-4 in 1991. Green became a bona fide Stanford hero, loved by the players and the fans alike.
Green's success in California did not go unnoticed. NFL front office personnel in search of new coaches realized that he had proven himself as a motivator and that he had learned coaching techniques from possibly the best source available in the 1980s, Bill Walsh. One such NFL manager was Minnesota Vikings president Roger Headrick. The Vikings presented a special challenge at the dawn of 1992. Once a young, aggressive team, the players had aged and become cynical. Newcomers were overlooked on a squad heavy with All-Pro talent. Sports Illustrated contributor Paul Zimmerman declared that former coach Jerry Burns had allowed a "creeping lethargy" to envelop the team. Having finished 8-8 in 1991, the Vikings did not make the playoffs.
Improved Minnesota Vikings
Green took over as head coach of the Vikings on January 10, 1992. His four-year contract with an option for a fifth year paid an estimated $350,000 the first year with significant raises for future seasons. Wasting no time, Green initiated tougher training regimes and stern lectures about substance abuse and attitude problems among his players. He maintained that the Vikings could reach the playoffs if they worked hard. He traded a few established stars and gave younger players opportunities. As his first season drew to a close with a much-anticipated wild card playoff game, Green told the San Jose Mercury News that he and his staff "were going to run a tight ship. We weren't going to allow three guys to project the wrong image for the 45 other players."
The Vikings became an exciting team again under Green. Their schedule brought them into conflict with Green's former team, the 49ers--and a coach who had worked with Green there--as well as with the Green Bay Packers, headed by another former Green associate, Mike Holmgren. Many observers felt that the Vikings' strong showing of 11 victories and five losses for the regular season was due in large part to the standards set and enforced by Green. "More than anything else...Green's emotional, tough-but-fair style of management is what has turned around the Vikings," commented Telander.
In the 1992 playoffs, the Vikings met the Washington Redskins and were favored to win the wild card game. Unfortunately, Green and his team found themselves outplayed by a seasoned Redskins unit that won 24-7. Knocked out of the playoffs early, the Vikings still have much to be optimistic about for the future. Sports analysts agree that Green's abundant energy and proficient football knowledge will give Minnesota a needed catalyst in its run for the 1993 Super Bowl. Vikings tight end Steve Jordan told the San Jose Mercury News: "When [Green] came in, he was very focused on what he wanted to have happen. One thing he's really helped us to do is focus on what's happening on the field, focus on winning games."
Dennis Green is perceived as a workaholic who spends long hours overseeing every aspect of his team's performance. His wife, Margie, told the San Jose Mercury News that Green "thinks sleep is a waste of time, and he only does it because he needs to." Few people in any business take their responsibilities more seriously than does Green. The coach noted in the Star Tribune: "We've got our work cut out for us, but we're making some inroads, because people are starting to talk about the Vikings again on a positive note.... It's my job to make sure if we say we're going to do something, we do it."
Within a decade Green had certainly improved the Viking football franchise. He made himself the winningest Viking coach since Bed Grant led the team to four Superbowls. During Green's tenure the Vikings had 97 wins and 62 losses, four NFC Central titles, and eight times qualified for the playoffs. But after losing seven games in 2002 the Minnesota Vikings replaced Green with his assistant, Mike Tice, and Green began looking for a new job. The change of events didn't deter Green from his hard-charging work mentality. He left without complaint, saying "My hand is on the plow and the best thing when your hand is on the plow is to look forward," according to the NFL Web site.
Joined Arizona Cardinals
After spending a brief period as sports analyst for ESPN and columnist of Sidelines for the Del Mar Times (California), Green found a new challenge with the Arizona Cardinals when he signed a four-year contract as head coach in 2004. The Cardinals had hovered in the bottom third of the NFL ranks for nearly 30 years. Green considered the team's poor record as a real point of interest. "The attraction of Arizona for Denny is that the Cardinals' organization has had trouble winning and now a lot of people don't expect them to start winning," Green's agent Gary O'Hagan told the Associated Press according to the Sports Illustrated Web site. Green outlined a plan of action for the Cardinals that really impressed team management. The Cardinals' football operations vice president Rod Graves told the Associated Press as quoted in USA Today that "Dennis is such a dynamic person and had such a thorough and detailed plan of where he wanted to go and what we were looking for, the precise things. We felt like there were certain things that we need to address in getting this team forward, and--without any forewarning from us as to what those things were--those elements were part of his plan." Green formally joined the Cardinals on January 9, 2004. And Green immediately set about cultivating his new team's winning spirit, based on his idea that winners are made, not born. Given that Green is in the top ten of the NFL's winningest coaches of all time, the Cardinals may not languish in the lower echelon of the NFL for much longer.
Awards
Named "Big Ten Coach of the Year," 1982; Sports Illustrated, Coach of the Year, 1998; World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame, Community Coach of the Year, 2001.
Works
Selected writings
- (With Gene McGivern) Dennis Green: No Room for Crybabies, Sports Pub., 1997.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Newsweek, November 23, 1992, pp. 67-8.
- St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 11, 1992, pp. 1A and 1C; September 3, 1992, p. 1C; September 6, 1992, p. 1C; December 10, 1992, p. 1F; December 13, 1992, p. 1C.
- San Jose Mercury News, March 25, 1986, p. 1F; January 4, 1989, p. 1C; January 8, 1989, p. 1D; December 13, 1992, p. 1D.
- Sports Illustrated, September 24, 1992, p. 24; December 14, 1992, p. 33.
- Star Tribune (Minneapolis/St. Paul), January 11, 1992, p. 4C; January 12, 1992, p. 1C; April 10, 1992, p. 1C; September 6, 1992, p. 7C; December 12, 1992, p. 1C.
- USA Today, January 7, 2004.
- Dennis Green, www.dennisgreen.com (June 3, 2004).
- NFL, www.nfl.com (June 3, 2004).
- Sports Illustrated, www.si.com (June 3, 2004).
— Tom and Sara Pendergast
