20 | MARCH 24 • 2022
future generations to improve on their lot in life.
Green served on active duty as a lieutenant
junior grade and was later promoted to lieu-
tenant. Upon reflecting on his service to his
country he said: “I got more out of the Navy
then the Navy got out of me.
”
TOUR OF DUTY ENDS,
CAREER BEGINS
Upon returning from Japan in 1956 at the end
of his three-year stint in the Navy, Green wasted
no time in beginning his pursuit of a career in
journalism. “I tried to get a job in New York and
was very unsuccessful,
” he said, “I got a menial
job with the Long Island Star Journal. I kept look-
ing for a job. I was very frustrated and angry on
one of my day’s off and walked into the offices
of the Associated Press [AP] and asked for the
general sports editor.
” He walked out with a new
job offer as an AP correspondent in Ann Arbor,
which he enthusiastically accepted in September
1956.
Upon his move to Ann Arbor, Green became
friends with members of the ’56 University of
Michigan football team. Among several books
he has authored is his penning of University
of Michigan Football Vault: The Story of the
Wolverines, a detailed account of the 135 years of
Michigan football. Updated just over three years
ago, the book features a vast collection of photo-
graphs, artwork and memorabilia preserved in
the university’s campus archives.
Green can take some solace in knowing that
during his tenure at the AP
, he was able to wit-
ness something he never saw in 56 Super Bowl
assignments — the Detroit Lions winning a
championship in 1957.
In 1963 Jerry accepted an offer to become a
sportswriter for the Detroit News. It’s only fitting
the first game he covered was the Michigan-
Navy college football game. In 1965 he became
the paper’s beat reporter for the Detroit Lions.
The Detroit News would be his one and only
journalistic home for the next 41 years.
Green would go on to cover all of Detroit’s
major sports teams over his four-decade career,
but in 1972 he said, “I changed my entire ambi-
tion. I wanted to become a sports columnist.
”
This gave Green the opportunity to move
beyond the day-to-day coverage of a single event
and instead interject more of his personality and
perspective of the sports he covered.
FAMILY FIRST
Despite all his travels, odd working hours and
a life of perpetual deadlines, Jerry Green’s
daughter Jenny, who lives in Troy, told me that
when it comes to her father, “he was always
proud of family … family always came first.”
A funny aside though, is that Jenny admit-
ted to me that both she and her mother,
Nancy, of blessed memory, were never sports
fans, not in the least. With that admission, I
felt like I had just gotten a big sports scoop of
my own.
Nancy though “was a faithful reader of all
his stories,” Jenny said, and would “help him
turn in his columns” to the paper. And though
Jenny, a self-described “girlie girl” growing up,
took great pride every time someone made
the connection between her last name and her
father’s occupation, “When I told my father
that people would say, ‘‘oh, you’re Jerry Green’s
daughter,’ he would always reply ‘no, I’m Jenny
Green’s father.’”
Jenny told me that her parents got engaged
after only two weeks of dating and were mar-
ried four months after that. Nancy, Detroit
born and raised, passed away from breast can-
cer in 2002 at age 68. “
And how long were you
married?” I asked Jerry, to which he replied in
a most moving and memorable way: “40 years,
6 months and 2 days.” To me, his response
came from the reporter within him, providing
the exact details to make sure the full impact
of his loss was felt.
MEMORIES OVER MEMORABILIA
Despite his legendary station in the world
of journalism, Jenny describes her father as
someone who is inherently shy and humble.
In a recent Newsweek article, it was written of
Green: “For all his pride in his Super Bowl
Jerry Green elated
to be in the press box
on Feb. 13 covering
his 56th consecutive
Super Bowl at
SoFi Stadium in
Inglewood, Calif.
“I LOVED NEWSPAPERS
AND I FOUND OUT
RATHER YOUNG IN
LIFE, I COULD NOT
HIT THE CURVEBALL
AND I DIDN’T BECOME
VERY LARGE. SO I
WASN’T GOING TO
BE A PROFESSIONAL
ATHLETE. SO I DID
THE NEXT BEST
THING, I BECAME A
SPORTSWRITER.”
continued from page 19
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