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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