During his National Football League (NFL) career, Green coached the Minnesota Vikings from 1992 to 2001 and the Arizona Cardinals from 2004 to 2006.

Green was the second African American head coach in modern NFL history, after Art Shell.

Green's best season in Minnesota was in 1998, when the Vikings finished 15–1 and set the NFL record for most points in a season at the time; however, the Vikings were upset by the Atlanta Falcons in that year's NFC Championship Game, and Green was unable to reach the Super Bowl throughout his otherwise successful tenure with Minnesota.

[2] His father, Penrose "Bus" Green, was the grandson of a Cuban slave who immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland and married a Seneca Indian.

Green's father served in World War II before briefly playing for the Harrisburg Lions semi-pro football team.

[citation needed] Green received a full ride athletic scholarship to attend the University of Iowa in the fall of 1967.

In 1968, eighteen black student-athletes from the university's football and basketball teams were interviewed for an article in a local newspaper, The Daily Iowan.

In 1969, led by running back Green, sixteen black players of Iowa's Football team boycotted spring practice.

[7] Aftermath Because of their stance, most of the items the black players demanded were implemented at Iowa, and throughout the Big Ten, within a few years, and a couple of them within a few months.

While some of the black players were allowed back on the team, a handful saw their college careers end prematurely because of their participation in the boycott against the university's unjust academic and athletic prejudices.

Specifically, the Dallas Cowboys had planned to draft Green, but instead picked running back Sam Scarber, who was subsequently waived before the season started.

After graduating from Iowa, Green briefly played professionally for the BC Lions of the Canadian Football League in 1971 before beginning his successful coaching career.

At the time of his death in 2016, he was the third most successful black head coach in NFL history, behind his protégé Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin.

[11] He left Northwestern in 1985, doing a stint as the wide receivers coach for the San Francisco 49ers under his former boss at Stanford, Bill Walsh.

In his last season with the San Francisco 49ers, they reached the 1989 NFL Super Bowl Championship Game, in which Green made the play call that led to John Taylor's 10-yard TD reception from Joe Montana that secured the win with 39 seconds left.

On January 10, 1992, Green was named 5th head coach of the Minnesota Vikings, replacing the retiring Jerry Burns.

[14] In 1997, Green published his autobiography No Room For Crybabies, in which he responded to the criticism and perceived personal vendettas by Twin Cities sports writers Bob Sansevere, Dan Barreiro, and Patrick Reusse.

After spending two seasons as an analyst for ESPN, Green was hired as head coach by the Arizona Cardinals on January 7, 2004.

Through his first two years with the team, he totaled 11 wins with the Cardinals and finished third in the NFC West, an improvement over predecessor Dave McGinnis.

Asked about how Chicago's tenacious defense forced six turnovers and shut down the Arizona offense, the normally soft-spoken Green unloaded from the lectern:[20] The Bears are what we thought they were.

[21]The day after the press conference, offensive coordinator Keith Rowen was fired and replaced with quarterbacks coach Mike Kruczek.

[22] Green's tirade is still used heavily in NFL media coverage today, often comically, to describe the obvious flaws of an opponent and the failure to capitalize on that knowledge.

[23] In August 2007, the Westwood One radio network announced that it had hired Green to serve as a color analyst on their Thursday night NFL broadcasts.

[24] On March 11, 2009, it was announced that Green would be the head coach of the San Francisco franchise for the United Football League's inaugural season.

[28] After his death, the Vikings team released a statement saying, "He mentored countless players and served as a father figure for the men he coached.