THE COACHES GREEN : Artie Looks Like a Well-Nourished Bear, His Brother Wears an Earring, and Their Father Is a Good Ol’ Boy; Together, They Have Won More Than 300 Track Meets

It was a miserably cold, rainy day in March, made all the more dismal by the results on the track. The Cal Lutheran men’s track and field team had lost for the first time in 15 years and 98 meets.

The Kingsmen were silent as they boarded the bus for what figured to be a long trip back to Thousand Oaks after the 108-45 loss to UC Santa Barbara. Each man feared himself personally responsible for the end of Coach Don Green’s streak.

But Green broke the tension when he boarded the bus, congratulating everyone for doing a “super job.” Then, before he sat down, he told everyone he was proud of them.

A 65-year-old veteran of more than 40 seasons as a track coach, he had won over one more group of young men.

“That took a lot of guts,” said Troy Kuretich, a junior sprinter and long jumper on the team. “He just told us to get ‘em next week. Everyone was impressed with his positive attitude. He’s a very impressive man.”

Impressing people is nothing new to Green, whose influence is felt across Southern California, and beyond, wherever his many proteges reside. He figures that 80 of his former athletes are coaches at high schools, junior colleges and four-year colleges in track and football.

The coaches closest to his heart, however, are his sons, Doni and Artie. Doni coaches the Simi Valley High boys team, and Artie is the Thousand Oaks girls coach. Both have a long way to go to match their father’s 98-meet winning streak. And even if they reach 98, they’ll still have something to shoot at.

When Green coached at Pomona High, he put together a 117-meet streak over 13 years. His top athlete in those years was pole vaulter Bob Seagren, who went on to win a gold medal in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

Green also coached Doni and Artie, who have carried on their father’s tradition as successful coach. In his nine years at Thousand Oaks, Artie’s teams have won eight Marmonte League championships and lost only two league meets. Artie owns a 57-5-1 lifetime record.

Doni, two years older than Artie, has the family’s longest current winning streak. His Simi Valley teams have won 30 consecutive meets and his career mark in eight seasons with the Pioneers is 62-1.

Together, the Greens have more than 60 years of coaching experience and more than 300 victories to go with only a handful of defeats. And that’s only in track.

Perhaps the most memorable moment for the Greens came on the football field in 1971. Don served as assistant coach, Doni was a junior defensive back and Artie was a freshman linebacker for the Cal Lutheran team that won the National Assn. of Intercollegiate Athletics Division II national championship.

Still, track is king among the Greens and Don remains the reigning monarch. He holds court at his Thousand Oaks home, where coaches make periodic pilgrimages to seek his counsel.

Sons Doni and Artie make the trip more frequently than any other coaches.

“We always go to him when we have a really big problem,” Artie said. “He usually doesn’t tell us what to do. He gets you to come to the the decision yourself. He just seems to lead you to the right place.”

Of course, when three strong-minded coaches get together, heads collide.

Tom West, the Royal High football coach, played on the Cal Lutheran national championship team. He often sat by in the Green living room when the volume began to rise.

“There’s a tremendous bond between them, but they’re all so strong-willed,” he said. “None of them wants to give an inch. It’s hard for them to give up something, even if it’s a point in a discussion. Each one would push a point to the extreme. There was never any malice, just a loud expression of their feelings. I just sat on the sidelines and soaked it all in.”

Don Green moved to the West Coast from Illinois after World War II and has been a Southern Californian for nearly 40 years. But in manner and style, he is still very much a Midwesterner.

Green would be at home in a Frank Capra movie. His ideals and values seem to have sprung from those feel-good movies of the 1930s and 1940s. His speech is peppered with expressions such as “golly” and “by God.” On the rare occasions he becomes excited and emphasizes a point, he resorts to the word “darned,” as in, “These kids are improving so darned much.”

Green is almost relentlessly positive. Aside from a knack for winning, about the only trait he shares with, say, Vince Lombardi is a love of motivational phrases. Whereas Lombardi trafficked exclusively in macho, Green goes for the tried and true.

He actually says things like, “This will separate the men from the boys.” His current favorite is “The proof is in the eating of the pudding.”

Green moved to Cal Lutheran from Pomona High in 1970 and inherited a track and field program that had never won a meet. He fixed that with his first meet, but then lost the next time out. The team came back to win the rest of the meets that season.

The streak was born. For 14 straight years, the Kingsmen never lost a dual meet, beating teams on various levels from NAIA District 3 to NCAA Division I.

Cal Lutheran finished third in the NAIA District 3 this year and qualified six individuals and one relay team for the NAIA nationals, which run today through Saturday at Arkansas State.

Green’s network of former athletes-turned-coaches makes recruiting easy, keeping his Cal Lutheran program supplied with talent. Once at Cal Lutheran, athletes are exposed to the Green method of coaching, which is simple. There are no secrets. He has no elaborate coaching philosophy and no bag of tricks. His method demonstrates that the most powerful coaching method remains the free exchange of feelings between coach and athlete.

“I spend a lot of time with individual counseling,” he said. “They have a different attitude when they really get to know you. When you talk, you have to get down to the nitty gritty and find out what makes them really tick.

“These are just down-to-earth-type things, living-type things. And they have a lot to do with getting kids to do what you want them to do--to compete and succeed and graduate and everything else.”

His athletes appreciate that approach. Seagren, who works in Encino for an athletic shoe company, remembers the Green touch from his days at Pomona.

“We always had good team morale and a strong spirit,” Seagren said. “It’s real important for a coach to bring that out. He had a special talent for that. That streak didn’t happen by accident.”

Although he has no thoughts of retirement, Green is at the point in a career when a man thinks of his legacy. Green doesn’t look to won-lost records but the people he’s touched.

Two of the most important aspects of the Green legacy are Doni and Artie. Both are former football and track stars at Pomona High and Cal Lutheran. They live in the same town and coach at high schools one city apart.

And they win. Their personalities and methods, however, are worlds apart.

Doni is the older of the two at 34. He is blond and stays tanned all year long; he looks like he just walked off the beach onto the Simi Valley campus.

His approach to coaching fits his appearance. He is easy-going, casual, runs loose practices and has few team rules. Independence and individualism are encouraged. The Simi Valley team is so loose even the coach wears an earring.

“I got it in Greece last summer,” Doni said. “It reminds me that there’s more to me than being a coach. I don’t want to be known as Coach Green. I want to be Doni. Guys in armchairs with a beer in their hand, they like to be called coach.”

So does Artie, who is always called coach. Short of that, it’s Mr. Green.

“I have this silly thing about them calling me coach,” he said. “I think it makes them respect you more.”

Pity the unsuspecting Thousand Oaks athlete who breaks that rule. Artie is as tough as Doni is laid-back. While Doni resembles a beachcomber, Artie looks like he just rambled out of the woods. He wears a thick, long beard that gives him a bearish appearance. He can be intimidating to a young female athlete, and he uses that.

“It must be his middle linebacker mentality,” Doni said.

Artie agrees: “I learned when I played football that I like to inflict pain. It hurts me, but I like the feeling.”

It’s hard to tell whether Artie is kidding. Even after four years on the team, senior sprinter Susan Bluhm isn’t quite sure what to make of Artie.

“When I was a freshman I thought of him as a really strict coach,” she said. “My first impression was that he was almost mean. But I think he’s one of the most influential people in my life.”

Said junior Christy Underhill: “He’s definitely strict. Nothing but death keeps you from practice. No coach has every worked me so hard. But he really cares. He knows his track. It’s his life.”

Underhill and teammate Staci Leach underscore the Greens’ ability to recruit. Both girls are out-of-state transfer students whose parents shopped around Southern California before settling on Thousand Oaks. Leach is from Arizona and Underhill from Georgia.

“Christy has competed in track since she was 8 years old and knew she wanted to go to college in California, so out we came in November,” said Virginia Underhill, Christy’s mother. “We kind of knew we wanted to be in Ventura County because the schools were better. When we met Coach Green, he outlined their track program and gave us more information than anybody else and that was the deciding factor.”

Doni shares Artie’s skills as a recruiter, getting nearly every healthy body on campus out for his team. The Simi Valley program frequently draws more than 100 boys to the varsity, junior varsity and sophomore teams.

“He’s a pied piper around here,” Athletic Director Terry Dobbins said. “With Doni, it’s just him. There are some people that other people will follow. Doni is one of those unique individuals.”

Doni gets more than quantity; he also recruits quality. A year ago, he lured basketball star Mark Robinson out for track even though Robinson had never competed before. Under Doni’s guidance, Robinson emerged as an excellent high jumper and advanced to the state meet where he placed second with a 6-9 effort.

Perhaps Doni’s biggest recruiting coup at Simi Valley were brothers Lawrence and M.J. Nelson. Lawrence, who accepted a scholarship at Fresno State, was the state long jump champion in 1985, and M.J. will attend Colorado next fall on a football scholarship. Both also are excellent baseball players and were recruited by Simi Valley Coach Mike Scyphers. They chose track instead.

“My brother was out here and told me about Green,” M.J. said. “He told him how caring he was and how he looked out for you. And it was true, very much so. He takes responsibility for you and will take care of you.”

Athletes for a Green-coached team receive an added bonus. They get a package deal.

“This may sound funny, but our girls cheer for the Simi Valley boys when we go to invitationals,” Bluhm said. “I guess we know that the coaches are brothers and we feel loyalty to Mr. Green.”

Leach agreed, saying, “Yeah, his brother is cool,” she said of Doni. “And their mother and father are such sweethearts. They’ll do anything for you. Mr. Green gets involved with all the athletes of his sons. He’s the one who gives you all the compliments. I can always count on him for anything.”

It’s also a package for the coaches, who benefit from having two other accomplished coaches in the family.

“A lot of people don’t have the ability to express themselves to somebody they trust,” Doni said. “That builds up a lot of stress. If I need to air my problems, I know my dad and Artie will listen and sympathize. They have ideas and offer suggestions.

“You know, some people might say we’re not breaking the apron strings. But I know no matter what happens, my mom and dad will always be there. And that’s the way it is with Artie.”