Conrad Green
By Mike London
Salisbury Post
WINSTON-SALEM — Charles Conrad Green, a notable track and field, football and basketball coach at Salisbury High in the 1980s and 1990s, died on Saturday, Sept.6.
Green was 66. He had been battling liver and colon cancer.
Green, who went by his middle name of Conrad, was a son of the late Calvin Coolidge Green, a well-known minister in Virginia and a Korean War veteran who rose to the rank of colonel.
Conrad Green has an important place in Rowan’s athletic history as he was named in 1994 as the county’s first Black head high school football coach since schools were integrated in the late 1960s.
Green’s elevation to head coach after 13 years as an assistant at Salisbury came in the final days of July, just weeks before the start of the 1994 football season. Salisbury AD Sam Gealy announced that Green, who was 35 then and the Hornets’ defensive coordinator, was the school’s choice to replace Steve Edwards. Edwards had head-coached the Hornets from 1990-93, competitive teams, but teams that dropped a lot of close games and finished with losing records. Edwards had decided to depart after getting an offer from his old boss Gary Whitman (they were together at Lexington) to be Whitman’s assistant at High Point Central.
Green grew up in New Kent, in southeastern Virginia. He was a three-sport standout in high school and headed to James Madison University to play football.
He proved to be a leader and an excellent defensive back for the Dukes, a letter-winner in 1977, 1978 and 1979. He graduated in 1980 with a degree in physical education and health. Then he coached for a year on the staff at Altavista High, near Lynchburg.
Green came to Salisbury in 1981 to teach and to serve as the defensive backs coach for head coach Bob Patton. He also served as an assistant on football staffs led by Roger Secreast, Gus Andrews and Edwards. Green was promoted by Edwards to defensive coordinator in 1992.
Long before, he got a chance to be Salisbury’s head football coach, Greene made an impact at the school coaching Hornet track teams, especially the girls.
He coached six conference championship teams in girls track. Three of his teams finished second in the state.
Greene also coached Salisbury girls basketball for most of the 1980s. He coached the Hornets from the 1982-83 season through the 1988-89 season.
Most of those teams did not have great records, but he had one outstanding hoops team, as the Hornets were 20-10 in 1983-84, tied for second in the North Piedmont Conference regular season and finished as runner-up in the NPC tournament and the Christmas tournament.
The Hornets had a strong defensive team and allowed only 38.1 points per game. Allison Rice, LaTanya Hart, Gwen Vaughters and Tia Blackwell did the scoring, and Hornets peaked by beating East Rowan. A.L. Brown and Asheboro in close, low-scoring games to win the District 5 tourney. Salisbury finally ended that season with a Western Regional loss to North Iredell.
As good as that 1983-84 basketball team was, Green will mostly be remembered as the head coach of the 1995 football team that had Andre Turner and Desmond Adams running the ball and Calvin Everhart making interceptions (11 of them) and blocking kicks.
Salisbury won its first 12 games.
The Hornets, who averaged 39 points that season, were overwhelming on both sides of the ball and beat Davie 64-0 and North Stanly 75-0. The Hornets shut out six teams in the regular season and allowed 4.7 points per game.
In the first round of the 2A state playoffs, the Hornets beat Randleman 64-0.
The season ended at 12-1 when the Hornets lost to Thomasville 14-6 in a third-round showdown that probably decided the state championship. Thomasville went on to win it all.
Green’s first Salisbury football staff included a young coach, Curtis Walker, who had recently finished an All-America career at Catawba.
Greene was the head football coach for four years, with 20 wins. The Hornets were 1-10 in his final season at the helm in 1997.
Those who played football and basketball for him or ran track for him or had him as their driver’s education teacher remember Green fondly, as a coach who could be tough as nails, but also a coach who could make them laugh.
SALISBURY —
