CULTURETECHLENSDennis Green
VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)
Combined Graph record U-07924 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-7052.
Dennis Earl Green, born February 17, 1949, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and deceased July 21, 2016, was a running back at Iowa before building a coaching career under Bill Walsh at San Francisco and elsewhere. In 1981 Northwestern hired him as its head coach — the Vikings' history records that he became the second African American head coach in NCAA Division I-A, after Willie Jeffries at Wichita State — and he was named Big Ten Coach of the Year in 1982. After a head-coaching stop at Stanford, he was named Minnesota Vikings head coach on January 10, 1992; the Vikings record that he thereby became the third African American head coach in NFL history and the second in the modern era, after Art Shell. In ten Minnesota seasons his teams reached the playoffs eight times, including the 15-1 season of 1998, and his 97 regular-season wins rank second in franchise history; he later coached the Arizona Cardinals.
Answer summary · this record in brief, from its own record text
Dennis Earl Green, born February 17, 1949, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and deceased July 21, 2016, was a running back at Iowa before building a coaching career under Bill Walsh at San Francisco and elsewhere. In 1981 Northwestern hired him as its head coach — the Vikings' history records that he became the second African American head coach in NCAA Division I-A, after Willie Jeffries at Wichita State — and he was named Big Ten Coach of the Year in 1982.
The record
- Also known as: Dennis Earl Green, Denny Green
Notes
Sports Encyclopedia roster CTL-SPE-0418. Firsts disposition: second African American head coach in NCAA Division I-A (Northwestern, 1981, after Willie Jeffries) and second African American head coach in the modern NFL era after Art Shell (third overall after Fritz Pollard and Shell) — both carried exactly as the Vikings' and AP accounts state them. Curator's Judgment (DRAFT): Green's trailblazing is structural — he opened head-coaching doors in both the Big Ten and the modern NFL while fielding one of the league's defining offenses in 1998. Photo: HELD — no Commons file naming this Dennis Green was found in the Lane A attempt.
Relationships
- Northwestern University — head coach of
Minnesota Vikings history: after coaching under Bill Walsh, Green became head coach at Northwestern in 1981 (through 1985), the second African American head coach in NCAA Division I-A.
Sources
- Minnesota Vikings. "Dennis Green: 'Born at the Right Time.'" Vikings.com. Accessed 2026-11-03. (primary source · build store)
- Minnesota Vikings. "Dennis Green: A Lasting Legacy." Vikings.com. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
- Associated Press. "Former NFL coach Dennis Green dies at 67." Sports Illustrated. Accessed 2026-11-03. (build store)
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Record CTL-E-7052 · Combined Graph record U-07924 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.
Cite this record
Chicago: CultureTechLens. “Dennis Green (CTL-E-7052).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph. Chicago, IL: CultureTechLens, 2026. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-7052/
APA: CultureTechLens. (2026). Dennis Green (CTL-E-7052) [Entity record]. CultureTechLens Combined Graph. https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-7052/
MLA: CultureTechLens. “Dennis Green (CTL-E-7052).” CultureTechLens Combined Graph, 2026, https://culturetechlens.com/graph/entities/ctl-e-7052/
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