Joe Greene

1946-

American football player

At six-feet-four-inches and 260 pounds, Mean Joe Greene was the backbone of the famed "Steel Curtain" defense for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League (NFL), during the team's dynasty of the 1970s. In 1975 sportswriter Roy Blount, Jr. profiled Greene in Sports Illustrated, writing, "He plays—or, sometimes, refuses to play—the conservative, regimented, technology-ridden game of football as if it were a combat poem he is writing, and gets away with it." Inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1987, Greene was the most respected and feared defensive back of his time, or it could be argued, of all time.

Biggest in the Class

Joe Greene was born Charles Edward Greene on September 24, 1946 in Temple, Texas. He was the oldest of three children, and after his father walked out on the family when Greene was ten years old, he helped his mother, Cleo Thomas, by taking care of his younger siblings after school. Later, Greene picked cotton to supplement his mother's modest earnings as a domestic.

Always the biggest kid in his class, Greene, who early in his life was nicknamed Joe by an aunt, assumed

the reputation as a bully even though he was quite shy and reserved, but his size coupled with his quiet, serious personality proved intimidating. Determined to make a better life for himself and his family, Greene dreamed of a college education; however, football soon came calling. In junior high coaches began urging the youngster to try sports. Greene quickly discovered he had little natural talent for catching baseballs and decided basketball involved too much running. As an eighth-grader he played on the junior varsity football team and fell in love with the game. Later, he also threw the discus and shotput in track, winning a state championship.

As a sophomore at Dunbar, an all-black high school in Temple, Greene became the starting middle linebacker. In eighth grade, Greene had weighed 158 pounds; by his senior year, he weighed 250 pounds. Although he was considered big for a linebacker, Greene loved the position. As he improved, his confidence both on and off the field blossomed. His sometimes overly aggressive personality earned him a reputation as a dirty player, and he was ejected from numerous games. But, to Greene, football was war, and he was determined to fight to the death.

"Mean Joe" Greene

Despite Greene's individual talents on the field, the Dunbar Panthers had only a mediocre record, and he was not heavily recruited by colleges. His options were further limited because the Southwest Conference was still segregated. Greene contacted North Texas State (now the University of North Texas) and was eventually offered a football scholarship.

During his first year at North Texas, Greene played middle linebacker, offensive guard, and defensive tackle on the freshman team before settling permanently into the defensive tackle position. In 1966, as a sophomore, in the first game as a starting tackle on the varsity squad, Greene and the North Texas defense held Texas Western University (now University of Texas at El Paso), a team that had tromped the Eagles the previous year, to minus-forty yards rushing. Sidney Sue Graham, the wife of the North Texas sports information director, thought her husband should come up with a catchy name for the overpowering defense. Given that the school colors were bright green and white, she suggested "mean green." The next week the name began appearing in North Texas press releases and it stuck, soon replacing Eagles as the team's official nickname. It was a natural step to apply the label to the team's All-American, and Joe Greene became "Mean Joe" Greene.

Greene, who remained a gentle giant off the field, insisted the nickname didn't fit him, but those who watched his hard-hitting, no-holds-barred play on the field couldn't agree. During his junior year Greene married Agnes Craft. Also a student at North Texas, she was the daughter of a Dallas businessman, and together they had three children. For the three years that Greene played varsity football at North Texas, the team record stood at 23-5-1. As a senior, he was the unanimous choice as the top defensive lineman in the nation and was attracting the attention of nearly every team in the NFL.

Football is War

In the 1969 NFL draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers took Greene as the fourth overall pick by the team's new coach, Chuck Knoll. Steelers fans, already soured by years of losing, bemoaned the selection of an unheard-of player from an unheard-of school. The local newspaper headline read: "Joe Who?" For his part, Greene was about as excited to go to Pittsburgh as Pittsburgh was to have him, and Greene didn't endear himself to the Steelers organization immediately, either. He held out for a larger contract, and when he finally showed up at training camp, he was out of shape and overweight.

It wasn't long, however, before Greene had proved his worth on the field and became a favorite of Steelers fans, who loved his passionate, aggressive play. On the field Greene's emotions often got out of control, and he was ejected from two games during his rookie year. Stories of Greene's antics became legend. Once he threw his helmet at the goalpost so hard it broke into pieces. During one game he came off the sidelines to spit full in the face of hall of fame linebacker Dick Butkus , because the Chicago Bears' defense was humiliating the Steelers' offense. Greene got particularly upset if he felt he was being held by offensive linemen and would explode with punches, kicks, and late hits. In a game against the Philadelphia Eagles, Greene became so frustrated that the officials weren't calling any holding penalties against the Eagles that he grabbed the ball before the Eagles' center could snap it, threw it into the stands, and stomped off the field. After a moment the stunned crowd erupted into cheers.

The Steel Curtain

Greene became one of the most dominating defensive players in the history of the NFL. Despite the Steelers' abysmal 1-13 record, he was named the NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year. He was voted the league's Most Valuable Player in 1972 and again in 1974, the year he began lining up at an angle between the center and the guard. He earned All-Pro recognition from 1970 to 1977 and received invitations to play in ten Pro Bowls. Lining up alongside Greene were teammates Dwight White, Ernie Holmes, and L.C. Greenwood. The four became known as the Steel Curtain. After Knoll added talent to the offensive squad that included Terry Bradshaw , Franco Harris, and Lynn Swann , the Steelers were well on their way to creating a football dynasty. The Steelers won Super Bowls IX, X, XIII, and XIV, a record four wins in a six-year span.

A serious shoulder injury caused Greene to miss part of the 1975 season, and chronic back pain led him to retire after the 1981 season. After taking several stabs at business ventures, he became the defensive line coach for the Steelers in 1987. Greene hoped to replace Knoll as head coach in 1992, but when the Steelers bypassed him to hire Bill Cowher, Greene left Pittsburgh to become an assistant coach for the Miami Dolphins. In 1995 Greene became the defensive line coach for the Arizona Cardinals, where he currently remains.

As a player Greene combined strength, speed, and sheer determination to become one of the most celebrated, if sometimes controversial, defensive players in the game. He simply refused to be denied. Respected and feared by his opponents, he became the building block that created the Steel Curtain defense of the Pittsburgh Steelers during the 1970s.

Chronology

Awards and Accomplishments

CONTACT INFORMATION

Address: Arizona Cardinals, 8701 S. Hardy Dr., Tempe, Arizona 85284. Phone: (602)379-0101.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Books

Contemporary Black Biography, Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale, 1995.

Fox, Larry. Mean Joe Greene and the Steelers' Front Four. New York: Dodd, Mead, & Company, 1975.

Harrington, Denis J. The Pro Football Hall of Fame: Players, Coaches, Team Owners and League Officials, 1963-1991. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc. Publishers, 1991.

Markoe, Arnold, ed. The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives: Sports Figures. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002.

Who's Who Among African Americans, 14th ed. Detroit: Gale Group, 2001.

Periodicals

Blount, Roy, Jr. "He Does What He Wants Out There." Reprint, 1975. Sports Illustrated (September 5, 1994): 138-48.

"Fizz Kid: Joe Greene Mean? Not When 9-Year-Old Tommy Okon Offered Him a Coke on TV." People (January 15, 2001): 121.

"Hired: Hall of Fame Tackle Joe Greene, As Defensive Line Coach of the Miami Dolphins." Sports Illustrated (February 17, 1992): 97.

Urban, Darren. "Cardinals' Defensive Line Remains Green." Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service (August 2, 2002).

Other

"All-Time Steelers: Joe Greene." Steelers Reference.com. http://www.steelref.com (December 30, 2002)

"Joe Greene." The Pittsburgh Steelers. http://www.steelers.com (December 30, 2002)

Sketch by Kari Bethel