Coach Bill Green
State Champs
’75, ’76, ’85, ’86, ‘87
Forever a Giant
Indiana’s most successful boys’ basketball high school coach, Green gained his greatest fame while guiding the Giants to five state championships. In three stints at Marion, Green’s teams won 315 games along with six North Central Conference, 13 sectional, 10 regional, and six semistate titles.
Green was named USA Today National Coach of the Year in 1987 after the Giants won the last of their state record-equaling three consecutive state championships. Earlier, he delivered back-to-back state titles in 1975 and ’76 that ended a 49-year drought and forever gained the devotion of Giants fans.
Green gained the first of his record six state titles in 1969 at Indianapolis Washington when his George McGinnis-led team defeated Marion in the semifinals.
Just one year later, Marion hired Green away from Washington to replace beloved coach Jack Colescott. Two of Green’s first three Marion teams lost in the sectional, stirring fan discontent, but then came the Dave Colescott-led Giants that ushered in a golden era for the boys’ basketball program.
Green also was an innovator, and his Matchup Zone defense concepts would be emulated by major college coaches. Green always wanted to coach at the collegiate level, and he twice resigned at Marion to pursue opportunities, eventually landing at his alma mater, the University of Indianapolis, from 1987-92.
Four Indiana Mr. Basketballs played for Green — McGinnis, Colescott and Jay Edwards and Lyndon Jones — and he also tutored James Blackmon. The Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame inducted Green in 1988. Green coached his final game for the Giants in 1996, and he retired to Florida. When Green died in 2011, he was on his way to Marion to teach the Matchup Zone to a new Giants team.