Ed Greene, a trailblazing coach at Contra Costa Faculty, the place he’s the one two-time inductee to the athletics Corridor of Fame and the namesake of its basketball health club, died Thursday night time. He was 83.
When he was employed in 1969 to steer the boys’s program, Greene succeeded Dr. Leroy Mims, the primary Black basketball coach at a group faculty in California and an East Bay civil rights legend. He held the job for 19 seasons, received 419 video games and 6 convention championships, and by no means had a dropping file.
So synonymous with Contra Costa Faculty, when Greene moved from the sidelines to an administrative function in 1990, he was identified by one phrase, in line with longtime athletic director John Wade II.
Coach.
“Coach Greene was a giant of a man, an inspiration for a lot of people,” stated Wade, who was by Greene’s aspect Thursday afternoon and recalled their first encounter, greater than 40 years earlier, when he was a participant for a Metropolis Faculty group that made it to the state championship recreation.
“We ended up being the best team in the north, but we go to Contra Costa and I see this guy standing over there, an African American guy, and he was a college coach,” Wade stated. “I was intrigued. Coach Greene, he sat over there with a big smile on his face. He was sharp, clean. He dressed up. Had a tie on, a suit and tie. I hate to say it, we ended up losing that game.”
It was nonetheless unusual for a Black man to steer a collegiate basketball program, and Greene’s success on the courtroom didn’t protect him from racism. Rising up in El Sobrante, the place he attended predominantly White De Anza Excessive Faculty, he was ready to beat it.
“There were lots of times when I heard him called the N-word,” stated Paul DeBolt, who performed for Greene from 1973-75 and went on to teach the ladies’s group. “He would just sort of bristle. He was just a gentleman. He understood the situation. He was a real trailblazer, for real.”
Ed Greene coached basketball at Contra Costa Faculty for 19 seasons, beginning in 1969. His groups received 419 video games and 6 convention championships, and by no means had a dropping file. Picture courtesy of the Contra Costa Faculty Advocate.
As one of many emcees when the school inducted the primary class to its athletics Corridor of Fame in November, Dwayne Foreman bought to learn his former coach’s identify. Twice. Of the 100 inductees, he was the one one to go in as a participant and a coach.
That was the final time a lot of his former gamers noticed Greene, they usually weren’t certain he would make it. Foreman had been unable to succeed in him for years, till he obtained a cellphone name a day earlier than the ceremony. It was one other former participant of Greene’s, Allen Cotton.
“He called me and said, ‘I’ve got somebody that wants to talk to you,’” Foreman stated. “And it was Coach Greene. That couldn’t have been anybody but God. He was supposed to be there so he could see all of us for the last time.”
Whereas Greene is survived by two sisters, it was Cotton who cared for him as his well being declined. That was the depth of relationship he constructed with the gamers he coached.
“He was very loyal to his players, and his players were very loyal to him,” DeBolt stated. “He was a hard-ass coach. He expected you to play hard. (But) he let us play. He understood basketball was supposed to be fun.”
Foreman credit Greene with altering his life as a high-school senior. He had garnered curiosity throughout the nation as a extremely rated prospect, however these scholarship presents disappeared when he realized {that a} man had been bodily abusing his mom and shot him.
“That was the end of my basketball career, except for Coach Greene,” Foreman stated. “I had about 300 letters from basically any school, but after that I was just a little Black guy that shot somebody. … If it wasn’t for Coach Greene, I probably wouldn’t have been able to play in junior college. He was really a life saver.”
The present coach at Contra Costa, Miguel Johnson, was employed in 2006, the 12 months Greene retired, however nonetheless described him as a mentor. He estimated that Greene touched 1000’s of lives over the course of his profession.
“What’s interesting is looking at how his legacy created men like myself that pour it back into the community, like he did,” Johnson stated in a textual content message. “He paid it forward, and it is now our duty to continue that legacy.”
