William E. Green (December 8, 1940 – March 15, 1994) was an American basketball player. He was a college basketball standout for
Colorado State University
Colorado State University (Colorado State or CSU) is a public land-grant research university in Fort Collins, Colorado. It is the flagship university of the Colorado State University System. Colorado State University is classified among "R1: ...
Rams
In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)2009–10 season. Six of the top 13 single game scoring records belong to Green including the top two: 48 points versus Denver and 44 against Regis. Every season that Green suited up for CSU they qualified for a postseason tournament. In his
sophomore
In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of post-secondary educational institutions. In ...
National Invitation Tournament
The National Invitational Tournament (NIT) is a men's college basketball tournament operated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). Played at regional sites and traditionally at Madison Square Garden (Final Four) in New York City ...
. They reached the quarterfinals and first round, respectively. During his
senior
Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to:
* Senior (name), a surname ...
year, the Rams lost in the first round of the
1963 NCAA Tournament
The 1963 NCAA University Division basketball tournament involved 25 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball in the United States. It began on March 9, 1963, and en ...
to Oklahoma City, 70–67. For his three-year career, Green averaged 22.1 points and 9.6 rebounds per game.
Fear of flying
After Green's collegiate career ended and he graduated from CSU in the spring of 1963, the
Boston Celtics
The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of t ...
selected him in the first round (8th overall) of the
1963 NBA draft
The 1963 NBA draft was the 17th annual draft of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The draft was held on April 30 and May 7, 1963, before the 1963–64 season. In this draft, nine NBA teams took turns selecting amateur U.S. college basket ...
. It was a foregone conclusion that he would play a professional sport, as Green was also drafted by the Boston Red Sox of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League (NFL) that year. Green ultimately never played any sport professionally due to an ever-increasing fear of flying. The fear had emerged gradually throughout his college career, and after a rough flight back to CSU from Utah during his senior year he realized how terrified he really was of flying.
The Celtics had tried to convince Green to work through his fear during the 1963–64 preseason. Professional help did not work, and
Hall of Fame
A hall, wall, or walk of fame is a list of individuals, achievements, or other entities, usually chosen by a group of electors, to mark their excellence or Wiktionary:fame, fame in their field. In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actu ...
coach Red Auerbach allowed him to take a train out to
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...
for a preseason game on the condition that Green flew back. When it came time to go home, he could not step on the plane. Green later said, "The fear just built to the point where I couldn't take it anymore. I made up my mind: I wouldn't do it. Auerbach told me to go work on it
he fear
He or HE may refer to:
Language
* He (pronoun), an English pronoun
* He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ
* He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets
* He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...
and come back later." Green quit the Celtics right before the regular season began and never returned to attempt professional basketball (or any other professional sport), knowing that in order to play he would have to get over his fear of flying, which was something he could not do.
Later life
Realizing that any future as a professional athlete was out of the question, Green earned a master's degree from
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a public university in Brooklyn, Brooklyn, New York. It is part of the City University of New York system and enrolls about 15,000 undergraduate and 2,800 graduate students on a 35-acre campus.
Being New York City's first publ ...
. He taught in several New York City public schools afterward, and then in 1971 became the principal of Jordan L. Mott School in the
South Bronx
The South Bronx is an area of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of the Bronx. The area comprises neighborhoods in the southern part of the Bronx, such as Concourse, Bronx, Concourse, Mott Haven, Bronx, Mott Haven, Melrose, B ...
. The school, an extremely dangerous and under-performing one, greatly turned around with Green's direction. He enacted stringent rules that made students earn certain grades and reach specified numbers of "class points" to be able to even ''attend'' the school's basketball games, let alone play in them. Green also created an atmosphere of intellectual competition whereby different classes within each grade would compete against one another—literally sitting desk-to-desk—and earn points for their class based on the outcomes. He would then post the school's weekly updated class and grade rankings in the hallways, which the students would intently follow. His methods, although unconventional, worked, and even though Jordan L. Mott School was pulling its students from two of the poorest performing elementary schools in New York City, most students were in the top 11% of all city public schools in terms of their reading level by the time they left Mott (after 8th grade). He had earned myriad awards honoring his school's success.
Green died on March 15, 1994, at age 53.