Green is headed to Hall of Fame
Longtime News columnist, writer is honored for his work covering pro football.

Jerry Green, a retired Detroit News columnist and writer, has won the 2005 Dick McCann Memorial Award for long and distinguished career reporting on professional football, and will be inducted into the sport's Hall of Fame.
"Outstanding -- well-deserved," said Tom Lewand, chief operating officer for the Lions. "I'm from the Detroit area, and had the good fortune of reading Jerry Green as I grew up. I learned a lot of what I know about the Detroit Lions from reading Jerry Green. Everybody in Detroit can take pride in having one of the best and longest-serving sports journalists in America."
Green's remark when reached by a News reporter Monday was perfectly typical.
"How'd you get stuck with this?" he asked. "This is worth about two inches."
Green, 77, is one of only five journalists to have covered every Super Bowl, a streak he will keep alive by reporting on the 40th game at Ford Field in February, even though he semi-retired last September. - NFL Football -
"This was long overdue, and it's the capstone of Jerry's career," said Washington Times writer David Elfin, president of the Pro Football Writers of America, whose 300-plus members vote on the award. "When I called Jerry and told him the news, he had to compose himself a minute on the phone. It brought tears to his eyes.
"One thing we all admire about Jerry is, he always carries himself like a beat guy, never walking around with his nose stuck in the air. You'd never know he covered the Wimbledons and everything, all the major events he did. He's just a hard-working guy."
Green's name will be engraved on an honor-roll plaque in the Canton, Ohio, hall beside some of the greatest journalists in sports history. - NFL Football -
That list includes Arthur Daley and Dave Anderson of the New York Times, John Steadman of the Baltimore News-American, Cooper Rollow of the Chicago Tribune and Paul Zimmerman of Sports Illustrated.
"Jerry will receive his award at our annual Civic Dinner (Aug. 6) during Enshrinement Weekend," said Joe Horrigan, vice president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. "Four thousand of his closest friends will be there (in Canton) to see Jerry receive his award and the players being enshrined receive their gold jacket."
In another Michigan touch, Green's award will be presented by a Pro Football Writers Association board member, Jarrett Bell of USA TODAY, a Detroit native and Michigan State graduate.
Since the late 1970s, Green has represented Detroit as one of the Hall's 39-member selection committee. - NFL Football -
He also serves on the nine-member seniors subcommittee that chooses candidates who played at least 25 years earlier.
Dan Marino, who played from 1983 to 1999 for the Miami Dolphins, and fellow quarterback Steve Young, who played for 15 seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 49ers, will be enshrined the night Green receives his award, along with deceased old-timers Fritz Pollard and Benny Friedman.
Pollard -- like Green, a Brown University alum -- died in 1986. He was the first African-American inducted into the college Football Hall of Fame, the first to play in the Rose Bowl, the first to play quarterback in the NFL and the first black head coach in NFL history. Pollard coached the Akron Pros and two other NFL teams as well. When the league imposed a ban on blacks that lasted from 1934 to 1946, he waged a one-man campaign to force the NFL to reopen its doors to blacks. - NFL Football -
Friedman, who died in 1982, was a Michigan graduate who played for four teams between 1927 and 1934, including the Detroit Wolverines, and was considered the NFL's first great passer.
They're all the kind of player Green wrote about during his half-century in journalism, the last 41 years with The News. He covered hockey and horse racing, pro baseball and college sports, even a rodeo once. But it was always pro football, Green has said, that defined him as a journalist.

Fred Girard / The Detroit News