Green Gives His All for People, Too : Lakers: As well as doing anything he is asked for the team, he tries to instill moral values in L.A. youths.

When he was a rookie, and other players mocked his devout Christianity and his decision to abstain from sex until marriage, A.C. Green’s steadfast faith helped him silence his doubters.

Eight seasons into his career at power forward for the Lakers, he was asked to play shooting guard while Byron Scott was idled because of a sprained foot. His same faith sustained Green through another trying time.

“I said, whatever it takes to equal victories and good, solid play, I was willing to try it,” said Green, who hadn’t played guard since a brief try in college, at Oregon State. “If that even meant trying to play point guard, I’ll shake my head and rub my face and we can talk about that a little bit longer, but if that’s what you want me to do, Coach, it’s OK, I’ll try it.

“It was really, really new. But one thing about me is I don’t feel I have many limitations. I feel I can do just about anything. The Bible tells me--and I really believe in the Bible--Philippians 4:13 says, ‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,’ and this is Scripture that I take to heart and really try to apply to my life. So there’s not a lot of things I really feel I can’t do.”

He has lived those words as a starter and a reserve through 527 consecutive regular-season games, the longest streak in team history and the 11th-longest ever in the NBA. This season, at 29, he tested and proved his faith yet again when he replaced Scott, averaging 12.7 points and 10.9 rebounds over nine games.

The team’s top rebounder in five of the last six seasons, Green has been the leading rebounder in 13 games this season, including seven while playing the off-guard spot. Overall, he is averaging 10.1 points and 7.6 rebounds and shooting a career-high 51.7%.

“What he is in terms of his convictions and religious beliefs, he brings to the workplace in terms of working hard and being competitive,” Laker Coach Randy Pfund said. “He’s the type of player a coach really loves. He’s exactly the kind of guy you love to have as a player, a son, a neighbor, the whole package.”

Green brings that same conviction to his mission to help youngsters build moral strength in a society he feels fails to teach them that “you need to have some form of self-control and respect for yourself. If you can’t respect yourself, you won’t know how to respect others.”

Through the 3-year-old foundation that bears his name, Green runs a summer camp for children, and hopes to find job internships for youngsters with Los Angeles-area businesses. To warn of the danger of promiscuity, his “Athletes for Abstinence” program made a rap song and a video called, “It Ain’t Worth It,” which is scheduled for release in a month. Green hopes to distribute it to schools and TV networks such as MTV and BET.

But that’s not all. With two business partners, Green plans to open a bottling plant that will provide jobs in areas of the city ravaged by last year’s riots. Someday, he would like to establish a home for unwed mothers.

“There has to be more emphasis put on self-control and responsibility,” he said. “If there’s so much sex education going on in schools, why are teen-age birth rates and abortion rates on the increase?

“I really want kids to think about what they’re doing. I don’t want them to give in to peer pressure and half-truths.

“I don’t want to scare kids. I don’t tell them, ‘You’re going to get a disease if you have sex.’ I’m more concerned with what kids have to go through in terms of emotional hurts and scars. . . . They hear those stories about entertainers and athletes (being promiscuous) and they don’t know what commitment is. They think you’re a piece of property. They lack respect for the human body and for human beings.

“I’m concerned with young people not having a chance to grow up happily. There’s enough problems trying to economically survive. You see a lot of single-parent homes, and that’s enough of a burden in itself.

“There’s just a lot of things that weigh on my heart. Someone has to try and communicate with young people and not be a talking head.”

Green long ago communicated his sincerity to his teammates, earning respect even from those who urged him to tone down his sermonizing and others who tried to set him up with dates and bet he would succumb to temptation.

“He brings a lot of qualities to this ballclub, a lot of inspiration and a lot of leadership, being a (lay) minister and having a lot of principles in life in general,” James Worthy said. “He applies those to every aspect in his life. People listen to his word and value what he says. His attitude is probably the best and his work ethic is even better. . . .

“I think only people who are ignorant make fun of him. People respect him. It’s not easy to walk that road, and a lot of guys who joked about him and gave him a hard time probably wanted to be like him, but couldn’t.”

Said James Edwards: “He reminds me of a Dennis Rodman-type player. He’s always hustling, always working hard on the floor and trying to make things happen. He’s always attacking the boards and just by doing that, it helps out the young guys. He’s an ideal player for a rookie to watch.”

The three rookies on the Lakers--Duane Cooper, Anthony Peeler and Alex Blackwell--make up one of many changes Green sees as the team fades from a perennial championship contender to a mere playoff hopeful.

“I respect teams enough to say it’s not humiliating to lose to some of the teams we’ve had a great deal of success with in the past,” he said. “But at the same time, it keeps you in reality, where you have to realize that you have to go and play. You can’t just walk on the court and teams roll over. The awe, the fear, the enormous amount of respect that once was there, that’s not there anymore. . . .

“It’s strange, and you find yourself reflecting back on times when you used to play so well together, when the continuity was like a glove going onto your hand, where no matter what five were on the court, you knew what they were going to do, they knew what you were going to do and you knew how to get the job done. All the combinations, all the equations always equaled a victory, or a very, very strong performance. You appreciate those days now, when you find yourself battling and struggling to really be a good team.”

It’s possible that the Lakers are years away from recapturing their past glory. And when they do, Green might not be with them; he is completing a four-year, $6-million contract and will be an unrestricted free agent after the season.

But his future, he says, is not what’s on his mind.

“My main concern is trying to get this team to play up to the potential and capability I know we can,” he said. “The contract next year, the Lord will take care of that. In that sense, it’s all in good hands. I’m more concerned with the here and now and what’s in my face every single day.”

His parents, however, are campaigning for him to come home to Portland and they keep him posted about what the Trail Blazers are doing.

“The talk of possibly going home to Portland comes up every year because people know how much I love it,” he said. “It’s my home.”