Tom Archdeacon: Jumpin' Johnny -- One of the great stories in hoops history
Apr. 9—The way he played basketball, he had the perfect nickname:
Jumpin' Johnny Green.
... Except for the one time he badly miss-jumped.
Although he wanted to play basketball at Dunbar High School, Green said he was cut from the team:
"When I was in high school, the tallest I ever got was 5-foot-10 and, when I went out, they had players who were bigger and better."
Later, when he was in the U.S. Marine Corps, he grew seven inches to 6-foot-5 and became a hoops standout on a team at an Army base in Japan.
"The coach of our service team had coached at Ohio State and he said I ought to be playing in college," Green said the other day. "But my thinking was, I didn't want to go to Ohio State. Being from Dayton, I thought Columbus was too close.
"If things didn't work out at Ohio State — if I couldn't play college basketball — I didn't want anybody to know."
That was the time Green fully jumped to a wrong conclusion.
Not only could he play college basketball — he was a two-time All American — but he was a great pro, as well.
Dick Evans, the football coach at the Army base, had played football at Michigan State and thought Green could play for the Spartans. He wrote to a letter to new MSU coach Forddy Anderson, who set it aside without reading it.
While on leave, Green visited MSU and was told to return when he finished his stint in the Marines. He did, late in 1955, after the basketball season already had started.
Freshman weren't allowed to play varsity then, so when he showed up for practice — wearing a T-shirt, raggedy shorts, high knee socks and old black sneakers — Anderson was not impressed and sent him to an upstairs gym to "watch" the other first-year players.
Within minutes the freshman coach was back at Anderson's side, telling the perturbed coach — who hated being interrupted during practice — to come upstairs immediately and see for himself.
Just as Anderson walked in, Green jumped up and grabbed a cable above the rim, some 12 feet off the floor.
"Get him a uniform — now!" Anderson commanded.
The following season, Green was eligible to begin varsity competition in January. He played in 18 games, averaged 14.6 rebounds and won All Big Ten honors as the Spartans took the league crown.
In the first game of the 1957 NCAA Tournament, Green dismantled Notre Dame with 27 rebounds and 20 points.
The Spartans made the Final Four and although they lost the semifinal in three overtimes to eventual champs, North Carolina, Jumpin' Johnny had 19 rebounds and blocked eight Tar Heel shots, including seven by All American Lenny Rosenbluth.
His final two years a MSU, Green averaged 18 points and 17.8 rebounds a game as a junior and 18.5 points and 16.6 rebounds as a senior.
He was the team MVP twice, first team All-Big Ten three times and was the MVP of the conference and a first team All American in his 1958-59 senior season.
He ended his career with 1,062 points (in three varsity seasons) and 1,036 rebounds.
His No. 24 was retired and now hangs from the rafters of the Breslin Center at MSU. In 1992 he was inducted into the Michigan State Hall of Fame.
As an NBA player, he was just as impressive.
A first-round pick of the New York Knicks in 1959 — the fifth overall selection — he quickly lived up to his nickname.
In a game against the Philadelphia Warriors, the 26-year-old rookie pulled down 25 rebounds while battling another rookie, 7-foot-1 Warrior, Wilt "The Stilt" Chamberlain, whose shot he also blocked.
Green would play 14 years in the NBA. He was on six teams, was named an All Star four times and finally ended his career — at age 39 — with the Kansas City/Omaha Kings in 1973.
His final NBA totals included: 1,057 NBA games, 12,281 points and 9,083 rebounds.
Saturday night, his basketball finally will bring him to Columbus and this time he doesn't mind if everyone in Dayton knows.
The 88-year-old Green will be inducted into the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame as part of the 2021 class of enshrines. The 2020 Class — whose ceremony was postponed by COVID — also will be honored at a gala ceremony at the Hyatt Regency that will include several other well-known basketball figures from the Miami Valley.
Although Green lives on Long Island, he said he's "thrilled" to be honored back in Ohio, where his hoops odyssey first began with pick-up games at the Linden Center and the Dayton YMCA.
"I'd like to thank the people who made the selection," he said. "A lot of them probably weren't even born when I played."
That's probably true, but his story and those gaudy stats — like his nickname — just jumped out a them.
'I could jump'
Green grew up on East First Street and in West Dayton on Williams Street and remembers going to the once famed Palace Theater.
He said his parents split up when he was young and he and his brother, Thomas, were raised solely by their mother, Catherine Perry, who later remarried.
"My brother and I had to work to help us survive," he said.
He got a job as a pin setter at the Palace Bowling Alley and at a metal shop/junk yard on East First.
"After high school I was working, but I was kind of unhappy with my life," he said. "I felt I was just wandering around."
His friend next door joined the Marines and eventually he did too. Stateside when the Korean War ended, he spent three years in the Corps and when it came time to pick a college basketball program, he said he remembered something that former MSU coach had told him:
"I had shin splints and they'd get so bad I could hardly walk. He told me Michigan State had springs under the floor, so I wouldn't have that problem. That lay on my mind and made a big impression."
When he first got to Michigan State, he said he focused on rebounding:
"I knew, compared to other guys, I had limited basketball experience. Being an offensive player required a little more training, but rebounding came easy to me. You do what you do best — I could jump — and that allowed me to fit in."
Years later, the once-dismissive Anderson gushed about Green's impact on MSU basketball.
"He was worth at least 50 points a game to us," he told a reporter. "Combine his scoring and defensive play with a bunch of psychological intangibles and I'm sure he was worth more than half of our point total in any game we played."
Although undersized compared to the NBA's other great rebounders at the time, Green continued to blossom as a pro.
After his rookie year with the Knicks, he averaged a double-double in four of his next five seasons, was named an NBA All Star three times and began making a name for himself — 33 points against San Francisco, 27 against the Cincinnati Royals, 32 against the Boston Celtics — as a scorer, as well.
He eventually was traded to the Baltimore Bullets, then was taken in the expansion draft by the San Diego Rockets. In January of 1968 was traded to the Philadelphia 76ers, who released him after the following season
By then he was 35 1/2 and some thought his best basketball was done. But he felt he still could play.
"I wanted to get with the Boston Celtics and I called Red Auerbach — I knew him and some of his players — but he suggested I give (Bob) Cousy a call in Cincinnati."
At the tail end of his own playing career, Cousy was the Royals player/coach and he signed Green as a free agent to a team that included Oscar Robertson, Jerry Lucas, Tom Van Arsdale, Fred Foster and Connie Dierking.
Green had an immediate impact, averaging 15.6 points and 10.8 rebounds a game, while leading the league in field goal percentage (55.9).
A year later, at age 37, he scored a career-high 39 points against the Detroit Pistons, became the NBA's oldest-ever All Star selection and again led the league in field goal percentage (58.7).
A Cincinnati Post & Times Star headline summed up his amazing resurgence — "Miracle Man Green Does It Again" — after he scored 35 to lead the Royals past the Baltimore Bullets in a January, 1971 game at the Cincinnati Gardens.
"Playing in Cincinnati was great," he said. "Dayton's just 50 miles away so my mother and my aunt and some of my schoolmates were able to come to the games. And we played a couple of games up in Dayton, so that was fun."
The Royals relocated to Kansas City before the 1972-73 season, which became Green's last in the NBA.
Settling in New York City
After his NBA career, Green opened a popular McDonald's restaurant near JFK Airport in New York.
Back when he was in college — in 1957 — he had married and his wife gave birth to sons Jeffrey and Johnny.
His wife has since passed away, but he said he now has "a companion" and three of his four children live within a half hour of his Dix Hills, N.Y. home.
He's retired, but said he's still an avid follower of basketball, especially the Knicks, and he had some nice things to say about the emergence of former Dayton Flyer, Obi Toppin, who, like himself, was a first round pick of the team two years ago.
As he talked about his career, he recalled times when he proved he could do more than he and others thought he could:
"I remember I was in the gym at the base and saw a guy dunk. I'd never thought about that before and wondered if I could. And, sure enough, I was able to do it the first time I tried.".
He hesitated trying college basketball yet ended up one of the greatest walk-on stories in NCAA basketball history.
And in the NBA, they thought he was washed up in his late 30s and he ended up being an All Star again.
"A lot of times you don't know that you can do something until you just try it," he said.
In his case, he just had to do one thing.
He had to live up to his nickname.
He had to be Jumpin' Johnny Green.
Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame
Inductions of 2020 & 2021 classes
Saturday, April 9
Hyatt Regency Ballroom
350 N. High Street, Columbus
Doors open 4p.m. — two induction ceremonies and dinner
2020 CLASS
AREA INDUCTEES
John "Bucky" Albers — longtime Dayton Journal Herald and Dayton Daily News sportswriter. Pride of Fort Loramie.
Mike Haley — Portsmouth High and Ohio University basketball standout and coaching legend at Dayton Roosevelt, Roth and Dunbar high schools and Portsmouth High
Hank Josefczyk — Dayton Flyers and Yorkville High standout
Kelly Lyons Cash — Bethel High and Old Domnion star, pro in Japan, coach
Dayton Roth State Championship Team, 1981: Head Coach Mike Haley, Anthony Graham, Ike Thornton, Robert Maiden, Wesley Jones, Fred Johnson, Steve Smith, Keith Byars, Michael Carton, Rick Lacey, Charles "Chuck" Taylor, William Colston, Walter Seldon, Darryl Murphy, Arthur Allen (manager)
Dayton Roth State Championship Team, 1982: Head Coach Mike Haley, Assistant Coach Bobby Porter, Mike Carton, James Smith, Robert Maiden, Frank Spells, Ron Hunter, Steve Smith, Namon Weaver, Mike McCary, Keith Byars, George Simms, John Bailey, Phil Brooks, Milton Young (manager)
OTHER INDUCTEES
June Brewer Daugherty
Beth Conway
Antonio Daniels
Rob Doss
Bill Fitch
Ericka Haney
Caity Matter Henniger
Mike Moran
Harry Pontius III
Kelvin Ransey
Toni Roesch
KB Sharp
Earl Shaw
Tony Yates
Bishop Hartley High School Girls State champions 1976 & 1978
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2021 CLASS
AREA INDUCTEES
Johnny Green — Dayton Dunbar grad, Michigan State All-American and 14-year veteran of NBA.
Jim Hamilton — Miami University and Glendorf High standout; longtime high school coach
Ralph Underhill — legendary Wright State University coach, Tennessee-Chattanooga assistant, Kentucky high school coach and, as player, starred in high school in Erlanger, Ky. and at Tennessee Tech.
OTHER INDUCTEES
Nancy Darsch
Jeff Gibbs
Dan Gilbert
Dave Hoover
Kim Jordan
Fran Krompak
Byron Larkin
Keith McLeod
Gene Mehaffey
Dr. Denny Morris
Fritz Nagy
Julie Plank
Mel Thomas
Luke Witte
Dresden Jefferson High School Boys 1963 & 1964 State Champions
Owens Community College 1992 & 1993 NJCAA National Champions.
