A future in coaching suits Round Lake's Green
Not many high school sophomores know what they want to do with their lives.
Michael Green is one of the exceptions.
Now a senior at Round Lake, Green knew very early on in his high school career that he wanted to be a basketball coach someday.
It helped that he was already "coaching" his teammates.
"With Michael, it's like we have another coach out on the floor," Round Lake boys basketball coach Jeremy Fisher said. "He can be a quiet kid, but he's not afraid to speak up on the court or pull guys aside and explain something. I've even heard him telling guys things they can do to get better.
"Michael is really good at working with his teammates and he's got a good eye for the game."
Green, a 6-foot-5 small forward, also has a good nose for the basket.
He will finish his career in March as one of the all-time leading scorers in Round Lake history. He's already got a spot in the "700 Club," a collection of all the boys basketball players at Round Lake who have scored at least 700 career points. Their names are displayed prominently on a board in the lobby of the gym.
With more than 800 career points already, Green, who is averaging nearly 14 points and had a season-high 25 points against Wauconda, could finish in the top five by the time he's done. He's shooting for at least 1,000 career points.
"It would mean a lot," Green said of the idea of being measured up against the likes of two of the program's brightest and most recent stars in Juddon Carter and Karnell Wright. Carter graduated in 2012 and is Round Lake's all-time leading scorer with 1,460 points. Wright graduated in 2014 with 931 points. He's sixth on the list.
"I would like to be able to come back here one day and look back on it and think about how these were the golden days," Green said.
Green turned golden halfway through his freshman year. That's when he got bumped up from the sophomore team to varsity. In his first varsity game, he started and scored 18 points.
"I didn't really have a voice yet freshman year," said Green, whose dad Tony, a basketball player at Warren in the early 1980s, was a volunteer coach at Round Lake for the first two years of his career. "I didn't want to be telling people what to do. I didn't feel comfortable with that.
"But that started to change (sophomore year). I started to direct traffic more. I'd be a facilitator. I'd tell people where to go. It just felt like my teammates respected me and looked to me to be a leader. They know that I'm trying to do the right thing."
The right thing hasn't always led to the best results for Round Lake over the years. Wins have been tough to come by. At 3-13 on the season, the Panthers are still searching for their first win in North Suburban Conference Prairie Division play (0-6).
"It just seems like we're not all synching together. Green said. "It gets frustrating at times. You just have to keep your head up. Losing is not the worst thing that will ever happen to you. You can always fight another day to get better.
"But I would love for us to start winning."
Green was a part of plenty of wins over the summer.
His AAU team, B&B Elite, which operates out of Waukegan, won the 17-and-under Division II national championship in Louisville. Several other local stars were on the roster, including Aidan Einloth of Grayslake North, James Mobley and Pierre Bailey of Grant and Shareif Bailey of Carmel.
B&B Elite happened to beat NLP, another AAU team from the north suburbs, in the title game.
"It was a lot of fun," Green said of winning medals and a trophy against some of the top competition in the country. "We grew up a lot on that trip to Louisville. There were a lot of good teams there, a lot of good players. There were scouts there.
"We really played well together. It was fast-paced and high-scoring and pretty intense. I really liked it a lot."
Plenty of scouts at the national championship liked Green's versatility. At 6-foot-5, Green can drive and score inside over bigger defenders, but he also can do damage on the perimeter. He has a reliable jump shot and can hit 3-pointers.
"I've been hearing from a lot of Division II and Division III coaches," Green said. "It really picked up after we won the AAU national championship. I haven't made any decisions yet. I just want to find a place that's the right fit for me."
A good education program is Green's top priority. Along with being a coach, he'd also like to be a teacher, either in science or social studies.
"I've known I wanted to be a teacher and a coach now for a while," Green said. "I just think I'd be good at it. I think I'd be loud (and fiery), but I think I'd have a lot of fun with the kids, too."
pbabcock@dailyherald.com
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