February is Black History Month, and the University of Northern Iowa will feature stories of African-Americans with ties to Panther athletic programs. The pieces will include the background of people of color and how those experiences relate to their playing or professional careers. The stories will be released each week in February.
Next up is Reginald Green, who served as an assistant football coach under Stan Sheriff from 1973-1977.
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Reginald Green grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and dreamed as many do in the Buckeye state to attend The Ohio State University and play football.
A funny thing happened on the way to that dream, and Reg ended up in Iowa and really never left embracing this state as his home for the last 50 years.
Green's parents attended historically black colleges with his mom going to the Tuskegee Institute, and his father went to North Carolina A&T.
"I was raised in a racially integrated part of America, and my parents never pushed me to attend a black college," Green said. "I did start at The Ohio State University as a walk on, but I soon realized my skills were not where they needed to be for that program."
Green then decided to try his football skills at Waldorf College in Forest City, Iowa. Waldorf was a two-year college when Green attended, and he played for Rev. David Bolstorff. Bolstroff was unique to Waldorf in that he was chaplain, counselor, a professor of religion as well as the football coach from 1968-2006.
Green played quarterback and linebacker at Waldorf. Green attended three semesters at Waldorf before moving on to Luther College in Decorah, Iowa. Green continued his football playing career at Luther and earned a bachelor's degree in art in 1971.
He began his collegiate coaching back at Waldorf as an assistant under Bolstroff. Green began considering his future in coaching and decided he needed a master's degree to continue up the coaching ladder.
"I saw the coaching arc and determined if I wanted to advance in coaching, it would be on the basketball side of things," Green said. "I chose to attend UNI and get my master's degree and hoped that I could land a graduate assistant on Jim Berry's staff as he took over the Panther basketball program in 1973. However, coach Berry had filled his grad assistant opening with Dan Breitbach. I decided at that point that I would still attend UNI and get my master's but not get into coaching."
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Reginald Green
That's when fate and a call from Bolstorff to then UNI football coach Stan Sheriff changed the trajectory of Green's plans.
"Rev. Bolstroff had come into contact and dealt with Stan on many occasions because of recruiting in Iowa," Green said. "Unbeknownst to me, he called Stan when I got into graduate school and asked him if he would consider adding me to the UNI football coaching staff."
Green said following Bolstroff's recommendation, Sheriff reached out to Green, and they met about a possible coaching slot at UNI.
"I got a call out of the blue from Stan," Green said. "I told him that I wasn't overly eager to get involved in football coaching. Stan told me that at UNI we didn't have a black coach on staff and that made it challenging at times to recruit and coach black players."
Green said he offered a different perspective on the role a coach of color wants to play on Sheriff's staff.
"I told him 'I'm not interested in being a coach of black players. I want to be a coach of football players.' I'm not sure he was expecting to hear that," Green said.
Sheriff and Green agreed on a position on the coaching staff that began as a student assistant in 1973 then changed to half time football and half time admissions in 1974.
Initially, Green worked with the wide receivers before taking over as the UNI offensive backfield coach.
"When I started out with the wide receivers group, we had two African-American players, but after all the shuffling of positions, I ended up coaching a wide receivers group that was all white players," Green said.
Green coached some talented receivers and backs during his five seasons at UNI, and he pointed to one of the players he would put near the top of the list.
"Tom Scalissi was a running back from Janesville, Wisconsin," Green said. "He was a hard-working guy and one of the top-rated running backs in the North Central Conference. His dad was a successful coach in Janesville, and he came from football family. He nearly broke the UNI single-season rushing record in 1975 that was set by Randy Schultz in 1964."
Scalissi has fond memories of Green as an assistant coach and turned it into a lifetime friendship.
"Reg is a great man and a great person," Scalissi said. "He would get after you a bit as our running backs coach, because he wanted us to have the perfect technique in our split back veer offense. Stan was such a fiery and intimidating guy. Stan was kind of like a combination of Bear Bryant and Bobby Knight. Reg was there to comfort you even though that was a time in the 1970s when coaches coached and players played. Reg was a very good friend of all ours. Reg was a quality guy, and we were lucky to have him. I got homesick when I got to UNI, but there were guys like Reg who you could turn to and talk with to make it better."
Scalissi returned to Wisconsin and coached high school football after earning his degree from UNI.
"I went back to Janesville and coached football, and I coached more like Reg than Stan," Scalissi said. "Stan passed away from a heart attack in 1993, and the one thing I wished I had told him before he died was 'thanks for being a tough sucker'. As tough as he was, Stan's slogan was 'Bottom line, get the blankin' job done!'"
When it came to recruiting, Green was in a good spot since part of his time was spent in the admissions office.
"It allowed me to see all parts of the state doing double-duty work in football and admissions," Green said. "Some of the coaches had their set areas like Coach Don Erusha had Cedar Rapids and Coach Dennis Remmert had Mason City – usually I ended up getting a lot of trips to the smaller communities in the state. I also got to recruit in Illinois and made a lot of good connections with former athletes that were coaches in the state of Illinois."
During one of his summers away from football, Green served in the academic advising department at UNI and worked with standardized testing. It gave Green a chance to try a different field but stay at UNI.
"With my sociology background, I enjoyed my time working the standardized testing," Green said. "The opportunity to be a director came about, so I stepped away from coaching in 1977 and became the assistant director of academic advising and coordinator of standardized testing at UNI."
Green is active in the Cedar Falls community. He and his wife, Kathy, are members of the Bethlehem Lutheran Church. His membership at Bethlehem Lutheran opened up an opportunity to serve on the Lutheran Church Racial Justice Advocacy Network of Northeast Iowa with Pastor Megan Graves (Our Savior Lutheran – Waterloo).
Graves and Green attended the anti-racism train the trainer workshop entitled "Transforming White Privilege: A 21st Century Leadership Capacity" in Chicago, Illinois.
"We are looking to develop skills for people that are leaders in any capacity," Green said. "We are helping them to get experience and tools in transforming white privilege to uplift the marginalized races. People feel that they don't have white privilege, but it occurs at the personal level, institutional level and historic operational level."
Green said he would like to stress a point on Black History Month.
"It's good that there is recognition, because we know there was a time when there wasn't any recognition at all," Green said. "We need to get to a point of understanding that black history is a part of all of our histories. Any group that is designated is a part of all of our histories."
