Merrill Green had a profound impact on OU football
Merrill Green has lived in Bryan, Texas, for 48 years. So you can understand the parade. Spend almost half a century in a place, influencing people young and old, and they'll turn out. Even if it's a driveby birthday celebration.
Green turned 90 years old Saturday. His Nazarene
Church friends celebrated with him Friday, then came the Bryan community. The mayor and the school superintendent, former players and coaches, people from the Brazos Valley who served in the Rotary Club or sang in barbershop quartets with Green.
A couple of cars even rolled by playing “Boomer Sooner.”
You might not know or recall Green's name. But OU football fans should. He's a giant in Sooner history, on two fronts. A major contributor to two dynastic
eras, Bud Wilkinson's and the wishbone.
These days, Green is as much Aggie as Sooner. He's lived in Bryan, the sister city of College Station, since 1972. Spend that much time in Aggieland, and Texas A&M will rub off on you. “Better join `em, or they'll drive you crazy,” Green said with a laugh. “Somehow, we got hooked in here, can't get away. Been great for us.”
The man who might be the best punt returner in OU history — three for touchdowns in 1953 — doesn't get around so well these days. Green uses a walker. But his mind is sharp and his spirit is bright, even though his wife of 64 years, Bonnie, died last year.
Green was Bryan High School's head coach for 21 years, then retired and ran for school board, becoming president. In 2009, Bryan renamed its football field Merrill Green Stadium.
So no big surprise when the turnout was great for the pandemic-induced birthday parade.
“It was a great time,” Green said. “When you're 90 years old, anything's exciting to you.”
A photographer at the birthday celebration got to talking to Green. Turns out the photographer is from Pauls Valley and told Green, “I still can see those red-and-white uniforms running onto the field. Biggest thrill I ever had in my life.”
Responded Green, “Yeah, you weren't the only one.”
Green was born in Woodward, where his dad was a Nazarene pastor. They later moved to churches in El Reno, Blackwell, Guthrie and finally Chickasha, where Green went to high school and became quite the speedy football player.
Green arrived at OU in 1949, just as Wilkinson's early teams were starting to roll, and was a part of the Sooners' 1950 national championship team. Not many of those guys left.
And few Sooners were such big-moment players.
Long before Marcus Dupree's season of home-run plays in 1982, Green did the
same in 1953. A 51-yard touchdown run with 36 seconds left to break a tie against Colorado and give OU a 27-20 victory. An 80-yard punt return against Texas, off a faked handoff, in OU's 19-14 victory. A 60-yard punt return for a touchdown against Notre Dame, a 28-21 Sooner loss.
How did Green produce so many monumental plays?
“I have no earthly idea,” he said. “There's nobody more perplexed. I always thought of myself as very average. Still think I was average.
“People say because I was rested,” coming in late in the quarter in those singleplatoon days. “I don't know. I can't really tell you. It was a magical year. I've heard coach Wilkinson … had people say all the time, `why don't you start Merrill Green?' Turns out he knew what he was doing.”
But those 1953 heroics — for a team that went 9-1-1, beat top-ranked Maryland in the Orange Bowl and began the historic 47-game winning streak — were not Green's greatest contribution to OU football history.
Green went into coaching in 1956, after two years in the military, coaching one year each at Wichita State and Missouri, three years at Arkansas and four years at Texas Tech. In 1965, Green was hired as the coach at a new high school, Abilene Cooper.
When Green got to Abilene, he inherited a sophomore quarterback. Jack Mildren.
“Oh boy,” Green said, 55 years after landing in Abilene.
“Oh boy. I tell you, there was never one like him. People have asked me, `Who's the best football player I ever had?' I had Curtis Dickey (at Bryan), people like that. Best football player I've ever been around was Jack Mildren, of course.”
The original OU wishbone quarterback, whose 1971 exploits sparked two decades of greatness.
It's scary to think how close Mildren came to not being a Sooner.
Green said that when he got to Abilene, “I heard about this quarterback coming along. People said he was ambidextrous. I said I don't care what church he goes to.”
Mildren's father talked constantly about SMU, but Green suggested to Mildren's family that the summer before his senior year, they drive around and check out some campuses in the Southwest.
The Mildrens did just that and even went up to Arkansas. All these years later, Green sheepishly admits he wanted Mildren to be a Razorback. Green had coached for Frank Broyles, and Broyles at that time was coaching Arkansas quarterbacks.
OU was in transition. Jim Mackenzie, who had coached with Green under Broyles, had died in April 1967. Chuck Fairbanks was named head coach, but the Sooners were coming off a 6-4 season and had won just one Big Eight title in the `60s.
In spring 1967, Green stopped by an OU practice to see his alma mater and his old pal.
“I loved Jim Mackenzie,” Green said.
They watched practice together from a tower on the south side of the stadium. Mackenzie confided, “You know, I have to pinch myself,” he told Green. “This is the best job. I'm telling you, Merrill, we're going to win a national championship. I've got the best coaching staff.”
A week later, Mackenzie was dead, at age 37.
Green wasn't sure Oklahoma was right for Mildren.
“Chuck, he wasn't on real good sturdy ground long about then,” Green said. “I figured, Jack doesn't need to go through a coaching change at all.”
But on their way back from Arkansas to Texas, the Mildrens stopped off in Norman. On campus, they encountered only one coach: Barry Switzer.
“They fell in love, as you can imagine, with Barry Switzer,” Green said. “You know the rest of the story.”
The rest of the story? Mildren became the nation's No. 1 recruit, he signed with the Sooners and changed college football history.
Green moved on to Bryan in 1972 and set down roots that run deep to this day.
He figures his vocation and his father's are quite a bit alike. Rare is the football coach or minister who stays in the same place long.
“Didn't play somebody's kid or somebody's mad at you because you didn't win enough games,” said Green, who bucked the trend and spent more than half his life in Bryan, and the Texas city showed its appreciation Saturday.
But Oklahoma is appreciative, too, because in the first half of a life well lived, Green helped make Sooner football what it is.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at oklahoman.com/berrytramel.