There is no Mean Joe Greene without North Texas

Joe Greene does not spend a lot of time pondering it, but he knows the life he built does not happen without the little Missouri Valley Conference school in Denton he chose in part because he just liked the student union.

Had he attended New Mexico State, or maybe Texas A&I, he may have gone on to become a great football player, but he would never have been one of the most celebrated names in the history of the North American sports: Mean Joe Greene.

“Had I not gone to a school that is green, and had a student body that did not refer to itself as the Mean Green, it would never have happened,” Joe Greene said this week in phone interview.

In this renaissance year for North Texas, it makes sense that the school would honor it greatest player with its greatest honor. UNT will unveil a bronze statue of Greene outside of Apogee Stadium on Saturday before its game against Louisiana Tech.

His No. 75 will be un-retired for this one game, and worn by junior defensive lineman La’Darius Hamilton. To make the announcement UNT re-created the famous Coca Cola “Have a Coke and a Smile” commercial that Greene participated in 1979, which completely altered the man’s life.

A life that would not look like what it does without UNT.

“That thought does not cross my mind often but it has,” Greene said. “None of this happens without North Texas. Coming out of high school (in Temple) I didn’t have a lot of offers. I went to North Texas on my visit and I had a good time. Just walking around campus. Meeting the coaches. Having lunch in the union building. That was it.

“I had an invitation to visit Houston and New Mexico State. The Houston visit was on my prom day so I turned that down. I visited Prairie View A&M but they weren’t really good at the time.”

A young man who would go on to become one of the most accomplished football players of all time settled on his school because he had a nice time on his recruiting visit; he liked the lunch in the union.

“I met my future wife there; we have three kids, and several grandchildren,” he said from his home in Flower Mound.

Greene’s game was so good that he would have been a star on any field, whether it was in Denton or Las Cruces. The name made him a celebrity.

“That started my sophomore year when we had a student section that started the ‘Mean Greene’ thing,” he said. “The section would say, ‘Mean Green, you look so good to me,’ and it caught on. Then it was picked up as a nickname: The North Texas State Mean Green.”

Greene was not thrilled when the Steelers selected him fourth overall in the 1969 draft, mostly because the team wasn’t very good, and it’s cold in Pittsburgh.

He noticed people called him “Mean” Joe, and the name stuck. He wasn’t crazy about that, either, until he and his wife visited the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio He noticed a lot of great players had nicknames. Guys like Night Train. Crazy Legs Hirsch. Slingin’ Sammy.

And being “Mean Joe Greene” had plenty of benefits, mostly because everyone seemed to know it. The name worked, too, right up the time his Coca Cola commercial aired in October 1979. The ad of this giant, menacing anchor to the Steel Curtain defense tossing a young boy his jersey, and then flashing a brilliant smile, both ruined, and built, his image forever.

“Prior to that I was identified as this tough, snarling kind of a guy only to be a big ol’ teddy bear,” he said. “It all flipped, just like that. That snarl I had developed didn’t work. People couldn’t take me seriously after that.”

Two years later, at the age of 35, Mean Joe retired. He had done everything a player could do.

Name a football accomplishment, and Joe Greene did it. Hall of Fame, both college and pro. Super Bowls. Named to the NFL’s 75th anniversary all-time team. He had his jersey retired by the Steelers, and is one of two men to have that distinction; the other is former Steelers defensive lineman and long time Cowboys defensive coordinator Ernie Stautner.

Greene is very much retired, and in decent health. He knows all of the grandkids’ birthdays.

Men like Joe Greene made the NFL what it is today. When the league, and television, were both forming their flourishing partnership in the ‘70s, Greene was a centerpiece in the creation of a branding that established football, rather than baseball, as America’s preferred game.

That does not happen without the name; Joe Greene would not have been the household name unless he was Mean Joe Greene.

And there is no Mean Joe Greene without the North Texas Mean Green.