Greene feels minor ailments no excuse to sit

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Errick Greene will talk about himself. He’ll talk about his team. He’ll talk about the disrespect he feels drove him first to junior college, then to the University of Maine. He’ll talk about his teammates, and the Black Bears’ chances for postseason success.

He’ll talk about his family, and the car crash that helped toss an already reeling Black Bear team into another state of confusion.

But there are things the 6-foot-3 senior won’t talk about. Not exactly. Not in certain terms. Not enough to … make it sound like he’s making excuses.

You can ask Greene about his health, about the foot injury that cost him his first year at Maine and still affects him today. And you can ask him about the lingering effects of the crash. But don’t expect him to tell you that any of those things hurt him on the basketball court.

His coach, for one, understands that. And he respects it.

“I do not ask him how he’s doing, and he doesn’t want me to ask, because he’s gonna play no matter what,” coach John Giannini says. “He handles his health issues with [trainer] Paula [Linder], and he’s one of those guys that if he’s not at his best, nobody will know except for him and Paula.”

“I think that speaks to his toughness,” Giannini says.

It may. And if it does, it speaks to it much more than Greene is willing … or able … to do for himself.

A few days after managing just one attempt from the field in a loss at Hartford, for instance, Greene rebuffed queries about his health.

“I’m fine,” he kept saying. “Just a bad game.”

Maybe. Maybe not. But Errick Greene, the star of this year’s Black Bear squad, isn’t talking. Not really.

Meet Mr. Versatility

Errick Greene, a 6-foot-3, 210-pounder, possesses a unique blend of basketball skills that defies traditional description.

He figures he’s a guard, and sometimes he is – especially if the opponent chooses to defend him with a bigger player.

At that point, Greene lures the defender to the perimeter and dices him up off the dribble.

But sometimes, Greene will admit, it’s fun to act like a big guy and take advantage of smaller, quicker players by beating them up on the low block.

“They’ve been throwing guards at me,” Greene says. “But there’s no guard that can guard me, because in this system, the way coach G posts up guards, and the way I like to post up, it’s difficult.”

Either way, Greene says, he’ll figure out a way to beat you.

“I was always small,” Greene says. “I was, like, 5-9 until my sophomore year [in high school]. So when I grew those three or four inches, I was, like, ‘Man, I want to do everything. I want to be a big man. I want to be a guard. I want to be it all.’ And basically, that’s what I did.”

He’s right, and the statistics bear him out: Since arriving at Maine, he has played four different positions. He has manned the point, and battled down low as a power forward. He hasn’t actually played the “5,” or center position … yet.

His versatility is evident on the America East leader board, too. Greene is ranked in the top 10 in five categories.

He’s the second-leading scorer (17.6 ppg), and is second in assists (4.00). He also ranks third in steals (1.72), seventh in field goal percentage (.463), and ninth in rebounding (6.0).

Greene said that as a young player, he heard a TV analyst say that all the best players could play several positions. That was all he needed to hear.

“Then I realized, by me doing this, I’m being smart,” he says. “I’m taking advantage of what I have. I’m big, I’m strong, but I’m fast. I think that deceives a lot of people, how fast I am on the court.”

Greene is also one of Maine’s top defenders, and his versatility pays dividends there: He can bang against a power forward like UNH star Chris Brown (who scored only six points against Maine on Feb. 14), or he can shadow a speedier, slashing type guard.

Greene says the player he has become since arriving in Orono after two years at Kaskaskia (Ill.) Community College back in 1999 isn’t much different from the player he was growing up.

“I’m basically the same player,” Greene says. “I’ve always been basically the same player. I get things done. However you want to look at it.”

That he does. And Giannini can pick out one game that proves Greene’s point perfectly.

The big night

It was Tuesday, Dec. 11, just a couple weeks after Greene was a passenger – and projectile – in a car accident that sidelined teammates and roommates Clayton Brown and Derrick Jackson for several weeks.

The opponent: Norfolk State. And Greene, who had originally been diagnosed with a fractured xiphoid process – that’s the bony structure near the sternum – did exactly what Giannini has come to expect.

He dominated.

“In the beginning of that game, he dove for a loose ball and ended up peeling a couple layers of skin off his palm on the floor,” Giannini says. “It really looked ugly.”

But as the game progressed, Greene showed no signs of that mishap … and dominated.

“Then he goes out, plays in an overtime game, plays close to the whole 45 minutes, and just put us on his back and almost helped us win with the 45-point performance,” Giannini says.

Giannini says there’s no debating Greene’s value to his team, whether he’s scoring 45, handing out a handful of assists, or guarding one of the opponent’s top scorers. Or doing all three.

“One of the criticisms of our team that might have some validity is that when it gets down to crunch time, there aren’t a lot of people besides Derrick [Jackson] and Errick who really want the ball in their hands,” Giannini says.

“That’s not surprising, because they’re the only two with any experience whatsoever. So we need Errick to play well, and we need the ball in his hands. It’s a lot of responsibility for him, and he’s done a great job with it.”

No respect

Greene grew up in Killeen, Texas, but when his family moved to Illinois during his sophomore year, he had trouble adjusting to the new, colder climate.

He eventually headed back to Texas and completed his sophomore year there before rejoining them before his junior year.

There, he averaged 21.9 points as a senior for powerful Belleville East High School. But Greene says colleges were lukewarm in their recruitment of him. He said several factors probably contributed to that.

“Three of us, really, were so good with each other, I don’t think anybody really saw how good the three of us were,” he says. “So we got recruited, but it probably wasn’t as heavy as it should have been. I had some offers, so I wasn’t feeling comfortable with them.”

Another sticking point, Greene knows, is still something he battles.

“It had to be the shooting,” he says. “The shooting hurt me, but at the same time, I was, like, ‘Yo, I see a lot of other cats out here [who can’t shoot].’ I mean, I’m effective with what I do.”

So Greene headed to Kaskaskia, where he became a National Junior College Athletic Association All-American as a sophomore.

The initial plan was to spend a year, go through the recruiting dance again, then choose a college.

He found he loved it at Kaskaskia, where he got to play with his fraternal twin, Derrick. And he found another father figure in coach George Carling.

And when Maine came calling, Greene listened to Carling.

“He kept referring to it as ‘UConn,'” Greene says with a chuckle. “UConn wasn’t good, and they got the right coach, and now look at UConn.”

Greene believed. And he headed to Orono, where he recently earned his business degree. He’s taking three more classes this semester.

The way things were

Things didn’t go as planned in Orono. Greene found that a nagging injury he’d suffered while at Kaskaskia was serious, and he underwent surgery on his left ankle after playing just two games at UMaine. That team would eventually go 24-7.

“I had two bones in my ankle that were touching each other that weren’t supposed to,” he says. Surgery corrected the problem, but cost him some mobility and explosiveness.

“Believe it or not – and coach G, I don’t know if he believes this or not – but I used to be able to jump out of the gym.

“There was a time in high school and junior college where that’s basically where I got my game from.”

Greene said that may have cost him in other facets of his game.

“If you look at it, I never had to shoot a jumper because I could always get to the hole and jump over somebody,” he says. “I could always do that. Believe it or not. I could fly.”

Life-changing experience

On Nov. 23, Greene and Jackson were riding in a car driven by Brown when another car pulled in front of it. Greene remembers the accident … or parts of it.

“I closed my eyes, braced myself, and boom,” Greene says. “I remember getting out of the car. I remember passing out. And I remember waking up in this nice lady’s lap.”

Greene also remembers what he did when he got home: He called his mom. And his brothers. And his sister. He told them all the same thing.

And then he told Brown and Jackson, too.

“I know [my brothers] didn’t want to hear it, but I called ’em and told ’em,” Greene says. “And I told Clayton and Derrick: ‘I love you guys, man.’ This could have been something real serious, but I was thankful to be there.”

After that, Greene admits, he started to think about his other love: Basketball.

“I started thinking about the [next] game. Like, ‘Hey. I’m playing.'”

He did. And though he admits that his chest still hurts (it’ll take four or five months to heal), and though he won’t dispute that some recent tendinitis in his Achilles’ tendon has slowed him, he won’t use those as excuses. Not for anything.

“It’s like [in the movie] ‘The Program,'” Greene says. “Are you hurt? Or are you injured? If you’re hurt, you can still play. If you’re injured, you can’t play. So if you’re hurt, and you can still play, I don’t think you’re hurt.”

Still, Greene does allow that he might be keeping such matters close to his vest … just like his coach says.

“Right now, it doesn’t matter,” he says. “I’ve only got a couple more games anyway. You ask me this question after the season? I’ll let you know.”