Inside look at Northern Iowa Basketball junior star guard AJ Green

Green looks back at how it all began

We’ve all been outside on a summer day and played pickup games at the park until dark. One of Green’s earliest memories on the basketball court comes at a childhood park saying, “I don’t know how old I was, I was pretty young playing at the park on the low rims.” In addition to burning the midnight oil on the neighborhood courts, Green grew up in a basketball family with his father Kyle being a longtime coach at both the Division I, II, and III levels.

AJ talked about one of his earliest memories with his dad, “Going to my dad’s games, earliest I can remember is when he was at Lewis University (Romeoville, Ill.), I was probably four. Being in the gym there is about as far back as I can remember.” Green would also become very familiar with the campus and program he would one day call home.

From the time he was seven years old AJ has been around with the Northern Iowa program with his father as a prominent member of the coaching staffs of both Greg McDermott and Ben Jacobsen that saw the Panthers win over 300 games and a program-defining win over Kansas in the NCAA Tournament. Those memories would become a solid foundation of a basketball life in Cedar Falls.