Former NFL player Ernie Green to speak, have number retired at Spencer football banquet

It’s been about 15 years since former Spencer High School running back Ernie Green visited his alma mater. On Saturday, the former NFL great will return to the school where it all started for a special recognition.

The 79-year-old Green will be the guest speaker for Spencer’s football banquet, which will be held in the Spencer gymnasium at 7 p.m. Saturday. Along with addressing the 2017 Greenwave football team, Green will also have his jersey retired, becoming the first Greenwave player to receive this honor.

“I’m really excited that I get a chance to share some stories,” Green said. “I sure do think the experiences I had here and the experiences I’ve gained since I left here could be beneficial. I’m pleased to be here and very excited because this is where it started for me.”

The 1958 graduate of Spencer High School was a standout on a football team that won 24 games in his four years. Along with his efforts on the football field, Green was the president of his senior class and a member of the National Honor Society.

Green was just as productive at Louisville, where he rushed for more than 1,500 yards in his career as a Cardinal. Green was also a baseball player during his college days, which gave him a wealth of good and bad experiences given the hot-button issue that integrated sports was during this time.

Green explained those situations and understanding the consequences of any action will be something he emphasizes to the crowd at Spencer Saturday.

“I’ve been called names,” Green said. “It wasn’t a pretty picture. I had to deal with those things on the field. Had I not been schooled on those kinds of things, I probably would have handled them differently.”

From Louisville, he entered the NFL, where he was chosen by the Green Bay Packers in the 14th round of the 1962 NFL Draft. Green’s stay with the Packers was short, as the team traded him to the Cleveland Browns during training camp.

Green played seven seasons with the Browns from 1962 to 1968, sharing a backfield with Hall of Famer Jim Brown for several of those years. Green split time at halfback and fullback for Cleveland, rushing for 3,204 yards and scoring 35 total touchdowns during his tenure. He earned Pro Bowl honors in 1966 and 1967.

The Browns were highly successful during Green’s time on the team, with the highlight being the 1964 season. Thanks in part to the efforts of Green and Brown, Cleveland won 10 games, the last being a 27-0 victory over the Baltimore Colts in the NFL Championship Game.

“We go into the dressing room (at halftime against the Colts) and said to each other, ‘We can beat these guys,’” Green said. “We went back in the second half and had our way.”

After a knee injury ended his playing career, Green spent a couple of years coaching the Browns’ running backs before pursuing other ventures. He worked in the office of student affairs at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. In 1981, he founded Ernie Green Industries, which manufactures and supplies wheel covers, wheel hubs, center caps, vehicle structural products and other interior and exterior trim parts to the automotive industry.

Today, EG Industries has 15 different plants and facilities and can ship globally to 16 different countries.

“It’s continued to grow, and we’ve just kept our nose to the grindstone and worked hard at it,” Green said.

Green explained that when he thinks about Spencer, he remembers the teachers who stressed never giving up. They taught Green to always seek answers, which made him curious and helped him learn more and more as he got older.

As far as Saturday’s speech is concerned, Green hopes the audience members take his advice of working hard, keeping out of trouble and staying humble.

“If you do that, one day you’ll wake up and conclude that you know what, I did OK,” Green said.

This story was originally published January 19, 2018 at 4:28 PM with the headline "Former NFL player Ernie Green to speak, have number retired at Spencer football banquet."