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Dennis Green

Dennis "Denny" Green (born February 17, 1949 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) is a former American football head coach. During his professional career, Green coached the Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals.

Green's best season in Minnesota was in 1998, when the record-setting Vikings finished 15–1 and set the NFL record for most points in a season (since broken by the New England Patriots on December 29, 2007). However, they lost in the NFC Championship Game, 30-27 to the Atlanta Falcons. Despite compiling a record of 97–62 in the regular season, Green was unable to reach the Super Bowl.

Early life

Green grew up in a working class household in racially-segregated Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. His father was a postal worker and his mother a beautician. His father died when Green was 11 and his mother died when he was 13. Green has said that he was in attendance at the March 2, 1962 NBA game in Hershey, Pennsylvania where Wilt Chamberlain scored 100 points.

He attended John Harris High School (now Harrisburg High School) in Harrisburg, and graduated cum laude with a BA in finance from The University of Iowa. According to Green, he was planning to be a high school teacher if his football career didn't pan out. In college he started as halfback in each of his three seasons with the Iowa Hawkeyes. Green played briefly for the British Columbia Lions of the Canadian Football League in 1971, then worked as an assistant coach at the University of Dayton, University of Iowa and Stanford University, initially under Bill Walsh.

College coaching career

In 1981, Green was named the head coach of Northwestern University, a school that had gone 1-34 in its last 35 games. In 1981, he was only the second African American head coach in Division I-A history (the previous coach, Willie Jeffries, coached at Wichita State, which no longer has a football team). Green was named the Big Ten Conference Dave McClain Coach Of The Year, as chosen by writers and broadcasters, in 1982 at Northwestern. He left Northwestern in 1985, doing a stint as running backs coach for the San Francisco 49ers under his former boss at Stanford, Bill Walsh.

In 1989, Green took the head coaching position at Stanford University, inheriting a team that had graduated 17 of its 21 starters from 1988. Green led the Cardinal from 1989-1991. During that time, his teams were 3-0 in the Big Game against the California Golden Bears. In 1990, his Stanford team defeated the #1 ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish in South Bend, Indiana. His tenure culminated with an 8-3 record (Stanford's best in years). A loss to Washington in the opening game of the season was the deciding factor for the PAC-10 championship. The Cardinal made an appearance in the 1991 Aloha Bowl, where his team lost to Georgia Tech on a last-minute punt return.

NFL coaching career

Minnesota Vikings

Green was a disciple of Bill Walsh's West Coast offense and was touted by Walsh and other NFL pundits as a likely candidate to be the second African-American head coach in the NFL. Walsh also had his eye on the job at Stanford after a stint in the broadcast booth. On January 10, 1992, Green was named head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, replacing the retiring Jerry Burns. He would be only the second African American head coach after Art Shell in the modern NFL era, and only the third of all time after Fritz Pollard and Shell.

Through his first six years with the team, Green never posted a losing record and the team failed to qualify for the playoffs only once. Initially, Green earned widespread praise for turning around a what had recently been a lackluster franchise. However, as the team's fan-base grew accustomed to regular season success, Green came under criticism for failing to advance the team deeper into the playoffs.

In 1996, two members of the Vikings' ownership board, Wheelock Whitney and Jane Dyer, reportedly contacted Lou Holtz, who was the coach of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team and former coach of the Minnesota Golden Gophers football team. They wanted to bring Holtz in to replace Green. Holtz abruptly announced his retirement in 1996, and rumors surrounded the reasons, one of which was the possible Vikings head coaching position.

In November 1997, Dennis published his autobiography No Room For Crybabies, But There's Always Room for Jello in which he responded to the criticism and perceived personal vendettas by Twin Cities sports writers Bob Sansevere, Dan Barreiro, and Patrick Reusse.He threatened to sue the team as his response to the Lou Holtz rumors.

The high point of Dennis' Vikings career was the 1998 season where the team lost only one regular season game and set the NFL record for the most points scored in a season and finally advancing deep into the playoffs. Green reached several milestones, including coaching the former highest-scoring team in NFL history (now succeeded by the 2007 Patriots) and becoming the first black head coach to come within a game of The Super Bowl, losing in overtime to the Falcons.

2001 brought uncharted territory for Green as Vikings' head coach, with a losing record for the first time in his decade with the team. The Vikings bought out Dennis Green's contract on January 4, 2002. Assistant coach Mike Tice led the team in their final regular season game against the Baltimore Ravens. Tice was eventually named the head coach of the Vikings.

Arizona Cardinals

After spending two seasons as an analyst for ESPN, Green was hired as head coach by the Arizona Cardinals on January 7, 2004. Through his first two years with the team, Green totaled 11 wins with the Cardinals, sending players to the pro bowl, and finishing 3rd and 2nd in the NFC West, an improvement over predecessor Dave McGinnis. Unlike his previous two seasons, the 2006 season began with great expectations for the Cardinals with the opening of a new stadium, sellout crowds, the drafting of quarterback Matt Leinart, and the signing of pro-bowl running back Edgerrin James. After a solid start, the Cardinals suffered some tough early losses. The worst of these came on October 16, 2006, after losing a 20-point lead over the Chicago Bears in less than twenty minutes, the generally soft-spoken Green threw a tirade during a post-game media conference. In that conference, Green lashed out in response to questions about Arizona's tenacious defense that forced six turnovers and for most of the game shut down the heralded Chicago offense:

The Bears are what we thought they were, they're what we thought they were. We played them in preaseason, who the hell takes a third game of the preseason like it's bullshit, Bullshit!? We played them in the third game, everybody played three quarters; the Bears are who we thought they were! And that's the way we took the damn field. Now if you wanna crown them, then crown their ass! But they are who we thought they were, and we let 'em off the hook!

This phrase is still used heavily in NFL media coverage today, often comically, to describe the obvious flaws of an opponent and the failure to capitalize on that knowledge. It has been ranked as one of the best quotes of the past fifty years. The following day, offensive coordinator Keith Rowen was fired and replaced with quarterbacks coach Mike Kruczek. Though Green later apologized for the outburst, and the Cardinals eventually would rally to finish the season 4-3 in their last seven games, (including a rare win over playoff-bound Seattle) many pundits felt that the circumstances of the Cardinals' collapse against the Super Bowl-bound Bears on national television, combined with Green's tirade, had sealed his fate with the Cardinals.

On January 1, 2007, the Arizona Cardinals fired Green, although he had a year left on his contract.

In August 2007, the Westwood One radio network announced that it had hired Green to serve as a color analyst on their Thursday night NFL broadcasts.

Future

Raiders owner Al Davis is reported to be interested in acquiring Green if Lane Kiffin is forced into an early departure.

Coaching tree

Dennis Green has one of the larger branches of the Bill Walsh coaching tree. He has helped groom future NFL Head Coaches such as Tony Dungy, Brian Billick, and Mike Tice.