azdad1978
Championship!!!!
Lifetime of seizing challenges made Arizona next step
Kent Somers
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 27, 2004 12:00 AM
DENNIS GREEN
Age: 55
Born: Harrisburg, Pa.
College: Iowa, flanker and running back. He earned honorable mention All-Big Ten Conference honors in 1969-70.
Pro coaching record: Posted a 101-70 composite record in 10 seasons as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, 1992-2001. Led the Vikings to eight postseason berths, four NFC Central titles and two NFC championship games. Named Cardinals coach on Jan. 9, 2004. Served as an assistant with the San Francisco 49ers (1979, 1986-88).
College coaching record: Revived programs at Northwestern (1981-85) and Stanford (1989-91) in his first head coaching jobs. Served as an assistant with Iowa (1972, 1974-76), Dayton (1973), and Stanford (1977-78, 1980).
Memorable: Green is one of only three NFL coaches to achieve a 15-victory season (15-1 in 1998), joining Bill Walsh (San Francisco, 1984) and Mike Ditka (Chicago, 1985).
He is one of eight coaches in NFL history to lead his team to the playoffs in each of his first three seasons (1992-94) as an NFL head coach.
Green's eight postseason appearances with the Vikings were accomplished with seven quarterbacks.
SOURCE: NFL/Arizona Cardinals
With thin nylon socks stretched to just south of his knees, dark sunglasses snug at his temples and a whistle draped around his neck, Dennis Green is poised at the entrance of a long, dark tunnel filled with the unfulfilled dreams and promises of his predecessors.
Dennis Green is comfortable here.
Go ahead, tell him he can't turn the Cardinals into a winner. Point to the franchise's pitiful history. List the names of the coaches who have tried and failed.
People questioning his sanity, doubting his team, this is how Green likes it.
His life has been filled with journeys down long, dark tunnels - some real, some manufactured, some imagined. Coaching the Cardinals is another one for Green, and at age 55, he admits it might be the last one in his career. While some wonder how in the world Green can turn the Cardinals into a winner, he imagines the satisfaction that will come if he does.
"Denny is a coaching entrepreneur," says Ray Anderson, an executive with the Atlanta Falcons and Green's former agent. "He's going to make decisions, and a lot of them are based on taking a risk that someone else wouldn't."
When asked to explain, Green says simply: "I'm an underdog kind of guy."
Dennis Green talks quickly and passionately about almost any subject but himself. He grants long interviews with the stipulation that he won't talk about his past. If you want to know about all that stuff, find a copy of his book, No Room for Crybabies, published in 1997.
"I'm an old guy," he likes to say, "why would anyone be interested in that?"
Maybe because he's so cocksure he can make a winner out of a franchise that has won one playoff game in 57 years and has had one winning season in the past 20.
Maybe because he spent the past two years out of the game, living in Del Mar, Calif., with his wife Marie and two young children, making his kids pancakes in the morning, buying them Happy Meals at the drive-through at McDonald's.
Why would anyone give that up to work for the Cardinals?
Part of the answer is back in Harrisburg, Pa.
Harrisburg years
Dennis, or Midge as his father liked to call him, was home that day when the phone rang. Just 11, he picked up the extension and heard the news. His father was dead of a ruptured appendix.
Two years later, his mother died of breast cancer, and his brother Bob, then 22, took early leave from the Air Force to care for his two youngest brothers, Dennis and Greg.
"We were raised to take care of each other," says Greg, a human resources director for the state of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. "Unfortunately, it worked out that way."
The youngest of five sons born to Penrose and Anna Green, Dennis learned at an early age that life can be not only unfair, it can cheat, too.
He worshipped his father, known as Bus to family and friends. Bus instilled in his sons a love of the outdoors, taking them fishing and hunting. Bus and Anna insisted each of the boys play a musical instrument, and Green still dabbles in the drums.
Dennis and his brother Greg were less than two years apart and might as well have been twins. They were nearly inseparable, and anywhere Bus went, his two youngest sons begged to go.
"If my dad moved, those two moved," says Green's oldest brother, Bill, now retired and living in Silver Spring, Md. "It was always, 'Dad, can I go?' "
There were very few fights in the house, but there were some outside. The boys - Bill, Bob, Stan, Greg and Dennis - stuck together. If some neighborhood kid was giving one of his young brothers a bad time, Bill went outside as the enforcer at Anna Green's bidding.
"My mom was a tough bird," Bill says. "She'd tell me, 'I've called his mom and told him I was tired of him hitting on Stan. He's the same age as you. Go take care of it.'"
Dennis never caused problems for his older brothers, they say. He was a decent student who held leadership positions throughout high school, an outstanding athlete who earned a football scholarship to the University of Iowa.
"We had some pretty strong parents," Bill says, "and it's unfortunate they left early. I'm sure that had to have some impact on Dennis that I don't fully understand yet. That's baggage, you know?"
Becoming a coach
Since elementary school, Dennis Green had dreamed of earning a football scholarship. After a stellar career at John Harris High, he fulfilled that dream, accepting the offer from Iowa.
It was 1967, and Big Ten schools were now fully open to recruiting Blacks. That hadn't been the case when Green's older brothers graduated from high school. Back then, Green says, there were quota systems in the high school that limited how many Black athletes could be on the field at the same time.
Bill Green, for instance, was an outstanding sprinter and football player. But he attracted no attention from colleges and entered the service.
"When I was coming out of high school, there were kids getting that kind of recognition and some that weren't," Bill says.
Was race the difference?
"Of course it was."
For Dennis, life at Iowa wasn't carefree. By the time he enrolled, he was married with a daughter, Patti.
In the spring before his junior year, he participated in a boycott by Black athletes upset by a number of issues, including coaches emphasizing athletics over academics.
They were kicked off the team for a short time, but most were reinstated after a team vote.
After graduation, Green wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He had a tryout in the Canadian League but didn't make it and returned to Iowa to work.
Two years out of school, he realized he missed football, so he bugged Iowa coach Frank Lauterbur for a graduate assistant's job. Green was hired, receiving a $1,000 stipend. He now had two kids - son Jeremy was born in 1971 - so Green worked from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., loading and driving delivery trucks, then coached in the afternoons.
He quickly worked his way up to a full-time assistant, made a reputation for himself and was recommended to Bill Walsh, then the head coach at Stanford.
"He was just a dynamic, energetic and engaging person," Walsh says, "who made a huge impression on me the first time we met."
Impossible jobs
The relationship with Walsh launched Green's coaching career. He moved with Walsh when Walsh went to the San Francisco 49ers, which led to his first head coaching job, in 1981 with Northwestern.
It was hard to imagine a worse program. The Wildcats were in the midst of a 20-game losing streak, and some of Green's colleagues cautioned him against taking the job.
There weren't a lot of opportunities back then for an African-American assistant to move up. No African-American had ever been head coach of an NCAA Division I program.
It seemed a hopeless job, and Green took it anyway.
In many ways, Northwestern was similar to the Cardinals job. There was a long history of losing, and a defeatist attitude stained the entire program.
Green seemed undaunted, the same attitude he has taken with the Cardinals.
His first team went 0-11. He gained 50 pounds. But whenever he called Walsh, he was always positive.
The Wildcats gradually improved. They won three games the following year, such a monumental accomplishment that Green was named Big Ten Coach of the Year.
Green stayed at Northwestern through 1985, winning seven games in his last three seasons. After the 1985 season, Walsh lured him away with an assistant's job with the 49ers.
In 1989, he was hired to revive Stanford's program. In three years, he turned the program around, going 8-4 in 1991.
That caught the attention of the Minnesota Vikings, who were looking to escape mediocrity.
NFL days
The NFL is an itinerant business that helps keep the moving industry afloat. Coaches and players live a nomadic existence, and 10 years in one place is a lifetime.
That's how long Green was with the Vikings, accomplishing everything short of an NFC championship and a Super Bowl. Eight playoff appearances in 10 years cemented the idea that the man knew how to build and sustain a winning program.
"The biggest thing Denny can do is, No. 1, he can get people to see his vision and get an entire group of guys to buy into the direction he wants a team to go," says Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, a former assistant with the Vikings. "And No. 2, he's a very, very good talent evaluator."
Dungy was in his first year as Green's defensive coordinator when Green told him he was going to trade defensive end Keith Millard, an All-Pro, draft someone to replace him and promote John Randle, a backup, to starting defensive tackle.
Dungy looked at Green as if he were nuts. But Randle became a perennial Pro Bowler and a Hall of Fame candidate.
"None of us would have seen that coming," Dungy says.
He did the same thing at other positions. He found a center in Jeff Christy, who had been cut by the Cardinals. He moved a defensive tackle, David Dixon, to offensive guard. He went to the playoffs with seven different quarterbacks.
"I'm not afraid to think outside the box," Green says, smiling. "There is a lot more space outside the box."
He would listen, though, when an assistant disagreed with him.
"Denny is not recalcitrant," says Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick, another former assistant. "He has great convictions, but you can go in and argue your point. He won't let his ego get in the way.
"I know I'm accused sometimes of being arrogant, and I think sometimes people confuse conviction and strength of will as arrogance. Denny has to be one of the most ego-less coaches in the NFL."
No one in the Twin Cities, however, is erecting a statue for Green. While there was success on the field, there was turmoil and scandal off it.
There were allegations of sexual harassment, which Green has steadfastly denied. There were reports that Green had an affair with a woman and that he paid for an abortion. She later filed a lawsuit that was dismissed.
In his book, he admits he made mistakes in his first marriage.
Also in his book, he threatened to sue Vikings owners because they once courted Lou Holtz to replace him.
The last part of the book is devoted to a detailed plan to buy the team, assisted by a "Money Mentor" in California. Later, Green explained that he was just "thinking out loud."
The book fueled an already contentious relationship with the media. Green thought some of the area's columnists were unfairly critical and mean-spirited. They thought Green was arrogant and power hungry.
"I think Denny would be the first to tell you that there were a couple of things he would have done differently," Billick says. "He's a private person and sometimes that can be misconstrued. He's professional, but he's going to hold the media at arm's length."
And when Green thinks he's being attacked, he goes on the offensive, even though family members have warned him not to.
"He's not the kind of guy who will sit back quietly and take some guff, even though that may be the most astute thing to do," says his brother Bill. "I've tried to tell him. The pen is mightier."
Green's final season in Minnesota, 2001, started off tragically, with offensive tackle Korey Stringer dying in training camp of heatstroke.
The players never recovered from that. Owner Red McCombs, once Green's biggest ally, became disenchanted with Green's reluctance to discipline receiver Randy Moss. The situation degenerated, and Green accepted a buyout with one game left in the season.
Green and his family moved to their home in the Del Mar area. In the past two years, Green worked for ESPN as a studio analyst during the season, ran a consulting business, fished and wrote a column for a local newspaper.
Mostly, he was a stay-at-home father to his two young children, Vanessa, 7, and Zachary, 5.
If they wanted pancakes, he made them. If they wanted to play ball at the park, he took them.
"It's a tough act to follow, let me tell you," says Marie, in charge of the morning routine now that her husband is coaching again.
For a while, it seemed Green could live without coaching if he had to. He wondered if maybe the itch to coach would go away in time.
"If you asked Dennis on three different days, you would get three different answers," Marie says about returning to coaching.
Green seemed to be the only one who ever wondered whether he would return. His son Jeremy, who works in the Cleveland Browns front office, didn't. He talked football and personnel with his dad every day.
Green's brothers didn't doubt he'd be on the sideline again, either, and Marie always assumed he would return.
"He's too good a coach," she says.
Last year, Green looked around the league at possible openings. He watched NFL games at ESPN's Bristol, Conn., offices with an eye out for the right fit.
Early on, he targeted the Cardinals, who have won nothing in Arizona but the public's disdain.
Perfect, he thought.
So with his fists clenched, a four-year, $10 million contract in his pocket and a bag full of bravado slung over his shoulder, Green takes on what might be his final challenge in coaching.
He's undaunted because he has walked down difficult paths before.
"I think this is a good place to win a championship," he says
Kent Somers
The Arizona Republic
Jun. 27, 2004 12:00 AM
DENNIS GREEN
Age: 55
Born: Harrisburg, Pa.
College: Iowa, flanker and running back. He earned honorable mention All-Big Ten Conference honors in 1969-70.
Pro coaching record: Posted a 101-70 composite record in 10 seasons as head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, 1992-2001. Led the Vikings to eight postseason berths, four NFC Central titles and two NFC championship games. Named Cardinals coach on Jan. 9, 2004. Served as an assistant with the San Francisco 49ers (1979, 1986-88).
College coaching record: Revived programs at Northwestern (1981-85) and Stanford (1989-91) in his first head coaching jobs. Served as an assistant with Iowa (1972, 1974-76), Dayton (1973), and Stanford (1977-78, 1980).
Memorable: Green is one of only three NFL coaches to achieve a 15-victory season (15-1 in 1998), joining Bill Walsh (San Francisco, 1984) and Mike Ditka (Chicago, 1985).
He is one of eight coaches in NFL history to lead his team to the playoffs in each of his first three seasons (1992-94) as an NFL head coach.
Green's eight postseason appearances with the Vikings were accomplished with seven quarterbacks.
SOURCE: NFL/Arizona Cardinals
With thin nylon socks stretched to just south of his knees, dark sunglasses snug at his temples and a whistle draped around his neck, Dennis Green is poised at the entrance of a long, dark tunnel filled with the unfulfilled dreams and promises of his predecessors.
Dennis Green is comfortable here.
Go ahead, tell him he can't turn the Cardinals into a winner. Point to the franchise's pitiful history. List the names of the coaches who have tried and failed.
People questioning his sanity, doubting his team, this is how Green likes it.
His life has been filled with journeys down long, dark tunnels - some real, some manufactured, some imagined. Coaching the Cardinals is another one for Green, and at age 55, he admits it might be the last one in his career. While some wonder how in the world Green can turn the Cardinals into a winner, he imagines the satisfaction that will come if he does.
"Denny is a coaching entrepreneur," says Ray Anderson, an executive with the Atlanta Falcons and Green's former agent. "He's going to make decisions, and a lot of them are based on taking a risk that someone else wouldn't."
When asked to explain, Green says simply: "I'm an underdog kind of guy."
Dennis Green talks quickly and passionately about almost any subject but himself. He grants long interviews with the stipulation that he won't talk about his past. If you want to know about all that stuff, find a copy of his book, No Room for Crybabies, published in 1997.
"I'm an old guy," he likes to say, "why would anyone be interested in that?"
Maybe because he's so cocksure he can make a winner out of a franchise that has won one playoff game in 57 years and has had one winning season in the past 20.
Maybe because he spent the past two years out of the game, living in Del Mar, Calif., with his wife Marie and two young children, making his kids pancakes in the morning, buying them Happy Meals at the drive-through at McDonald's.
Why would anyone give that up to work for the Cardinals?
Part of the answer is back in Harrisburg, Pa.
Harrisburg years
Dennis, or Midge as his father liked to call him, was home that day when the phone rang. Just 11, he picked up the extension and heard the news. His father was dead of a ruptured appendix.
Two years later, his mother died of breast cancer, and his brother Bob, then 22, took early leave from the Air Force to care for his two youngest brothers, Dennis and Greg.
"We were raised to take care of each other," says Greg, a human resources director for the state of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg. "Unfortunately, it worked out that way."
The youngest of five sons born to Penrose and Anna Green, Dennis learned at an early age that life can be not only unfair, it can cheat, too.
He worshipped his father, known as Bus to family and friends. Bus instilled in his sons a love of the outdoors, taking them fishing and hunting. Bus and Anna insisted each of the boys play a musical instrument, and Green still dabbles in the drums.
Dennis and his brother Greg were less than two years apart and might as well have been twins. They were nearly inseparable, and anywhere Bus went, his two youngest sons begged to go.
"If my dad moved, those two moved," says Green's oldest brother, Bill, now retired and living in Silver Spring, Md. "It was always, 'Dad, can I go?' "
There were very few fights in the house, but there were some outside. The boys - Bill, Bob, Stan, Greg and Dennis - stuck together. If some neighborhood kid was giving one of his young brothers a bad time, Bill went outside as the enforcer at Anna Green's bidding.
"My mom was a tough bird," Bill says. "She'd tell me, 'I've called his mom and told him I was tired of him hitting on Stan. He's the same age as you. Go take care of it.'"
Dennis never caused problems for his older brothers, they say. He was a decent student who held leadership positions throughout high school, an outstanding athlete who earned a football scholarship to the University of Iowa.
"We had some pretty strong parents," Bill says, "and it's unfortunate they left early. I'm sure that had to have some impact on Dennis that I don't fully understand yet. That's baggage, you know?"
Becoming a coach
Since elementary school, Dennis Green had dreamed of earning a football scholarship. After a stellar career at John Harris High, he fulfilled that dream, accepting the offer from Iowa.
It was 1967, and Big Ten schools were now fully open to recruiting Blacks. That hadn't been the case when Green's older brothers graduated from high school. Back then, Green says, there were quota systems in the high school that limited how many Black athletes could be on the field at the same time.
Bill Green, for instance, was an outstanding sprinter and football player. But he attracted no attention from colleges and entered the service.
"When I was coming out of high school, there were kids getting that kind of recognition and some that weren't," Bill says.
Was race the difference?
"Of course it was."
For Dennis, life at Iowa wasn't carefree. By the time he enrolled, he was married with a daughter, Patti.
In the spring before his junior year, he participated in a boycott by Black athletes upset by a number of issues, including coaches emphasizing athletics over academics.
They were kicked off the team for a short time, but most were reinstated after a team vote.
After graduation, Green wasn't sure what he wanted to do. He had a tryout in the Canadian League but didn't make it and returned to Iowa to work.
Two years out of school, he realized he missed football, so he bugged Iowa coach Frank Lauterbur for a graduate assistant's job. Green was hired, receiving a $1,000 stipend. He now had two kids - son Jeremy was born in 1971 - so Green worked from 5 a.m. to 1 p.m., loading and driving delivery trucks, then coached in the afternoons.
He quickly worked his way up to a full-time assistant, made a reputation for himself and was recommended to Bill Walsh, then the head coach at Stanford.
"He was just a dynamic, energetic and engaging person," Walsh says, "who made a huge impression on me the first time we met."
Impossible jobs
The relationship with Walsh launched Green's coaching career. He moved with Walsh when Walsh went to the San Francisco 49ers, which led to his first head coaching job, in 1981 with Northwestern.
It was hard to imagine a worse program. The Wildcats were in the midst of a 20-game losing streak, and some of Green's colleagues cautioned him against taking the job.
There weren't a lot of opportunities back then for an African-American assistant to move up. No African-American had ever been head coach of an NCAA Division I program.
It seemed a hopeless job, and Green took it anyway.
In many ways, Northwestern was similar to the Cardinals job. There was a long history of losing, and a defeatist attitude stained the entire program.
Green seemed undaunted, the same attitude he has taken with the Cardinals.
His first team went 0-11. He gained 50 pounds. But whenever he called Walsh, he was always positive.
The Wildcats gradually improved. They won three games the following year, such a monumental accomplishment that Green was named Big Ten Coach of the Year.
Green stayed at Northwestern through 1985, winning seven games in his last three seasons. After the 1985 season, Walsh lured him away with an assistant's job with the 49ers.
In 1989, he was hired to revive Stanford's program. In three years, he turned the program around, going 8-4 in 1991.
That caught the attention of the Minnesota Vikings, who were looking to escape mediocrity.
NFL days
The NFL is an itinerant business that helps keep the moving industry afloat. Coaches and players live a nomadic existence, and 10 years in one place is a lifetime.
That's how long Green was with the Vikings, accomplishing everything short of an NFC championship and a Super Bowl. Eight playoff appearances in 10 years cemented the idea that the man knew how to build and sustain a winning program.
"The biggest thing Denny can do is, No. 1, he can get people to see his vision and get an entire group of guys to buy into the direction he wants a team to go," says Indianapolis Colts coach Tony Dungy, a former assistant with the Vikings. "And No. 2, he's a very, very good talent evaluator."
Dungy was in his first year as Green's defensive coordinator when Green told him he was going to trade defensive end Keith Millard, an All-Pro, draft someone to replace him and promote John Randle, a backup, to starting defensive tackle.
Dungy looked at Green as if he were nuts. But Randle became a perennial Pro Bowler and a Hall of Fame candidate.
"None of us would have seen that coming," Dungy says.
He did the same thing at other positions. He found a center in Jeff Christy, who had been cut by the Cardinals. He moved a defensive tackle, David Dixon, to offensive guard. He went to the playoffs with seven different quarterbacks.
"I'm not afraid to think outside the box," Green says, smiling. "There is a lot more space outside the box."
He would listen, though, when an assistant disagreed with him.
"Denny is not recalcitrant," says Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick, another former assistant. "He has great convictions, but you can go in and argue your point. He won't let his ego get in the way.
"I know I'm accused sometimes of being arrogant, and I think sometimes people confuse conviction and strength of will as arrogance. Denny has to be one of the most ego-less coaches in the NFL."
No one in the Twin Cities, however, is erecting a statue for Green. While there was success on the field, there was turmoil and scandal off it.
There were allegations of sexual harassment, which Green has steadfastly denied. There were reports that Green had an affair with a woman and that he paid for an abortion. She later filed a lawsuit that was dismissed.
In his book, he admits he made mistakes in his first marriage.
Also in his book, he threatened to sue Vikings owners because they once courted Lou Holtz to replace him.
The last part of the book is devoted to a detailed plan to buy the team, assisted by a "Money Mentor" in California. Later, Green explained that he was just "thinking out loud."
The book fueled an already contentious relationship with the media. Green thought some of the area's columnists were unfairly critical and mean-spirited. They thought Green was arrogant and power hungry.
"I think Denny would be the first to tell you that there were a couple of things he would have done differently," Billick says. "He's a private person and sometimes that can be misconstrued. He's professional, but he's going to hold the media at arm's length."
And when Green thinks he's being attacked, he goes on the offensive, even though family members have warned him not to.
"He's not the kind of guy who will sit back quietly and take some guff, even though that may be the most astute thing to do," says his brother Bill. "I've tried to tell him. The pen is mightier."
Green's final season in Minnesota, 2001, started off tragically, with offensive tackle Korey Stringer dying in training camp of heatstroke.
The players never recovered from that. Owner Red McCombs, once Green's biggest ally, became disenchanted with Green's reluctance to discipline receiver Randy Moss. The situation degenerated, and Green accepted a buyout with one game left in the season.
Green and his family moved to their home in the Del Mar area. In the past two years, Green worked for ESPN as a studio analyst during the season, ran a consulting business, fished and wrote a column for a local newspaper.
Mostly, he was a stay-at-home father to his two young children, Vanessa, 7, and Zachary, 5.
If they wanted pancakes, he made them. If they wanted to play ball at the park, he took them.
"It's a tough act to follow, let me tell you," says Marie, in charge of the morning routine now that her husband is coaching again.
For a while, it seemed Green could live without coaching if he had to. He wondered if maybe the itch to coach would go away in time.
"If you asked Dennis on three different days, you would get three different answers," Marie says about returning to coaching.
Green seemed to be the only one who ever wondered whether he would return. His son Jeremy, who works in the Cleveland Browns front office, didn't. He talked football and personnel with his dad every day.
Green's brothers didn't doubt he'd be on the sideline again, either, and Marie always assumed he would return.
"He's too good a coach," she says.
Last year, Green looked around the league at possible openings. He watched NFL games at ESPN's Bristol, Conn., offices with an eye out for the right fit.
Early on, he targeted the Cardinals, who have won nothing in Arizona but the public's disdain.
Perfect, he thought.
So with his fists clenched, a four-year, $10 million contract in his pocket and a bag full of bravado slung over his shoulder, Green takes on what might be his final challenge in coaching.
He's undaunted because he has walked down difficult paths before.
"I think this is a good place to win a championship," he says
