Dr. Thomas Arnold Greene was born on March 11th, 1914, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. He was born to Samuel C. and Gertrude Greene and had one brother named Lewis F. Greene. He lived in Harrisburg for the first twelve years of his life, but eventually moved to Huntingdon, Pennsylvania in 1926. In Huntingdon, he attended Huntingdon High School, from which he graduated in 1932. At Huntingdon High School, he played varsity basketball, football, and baseball. After his graduation, he was accepted to the five-year dentistry program at the University of Pittsburgh, from which he graduated in 1837 with a D.D.S. degree.
While at the University of Pittsburgh, he was the starting quarterback and fullback for the men’s football team. During his senior year, the University of Pittsburgh were college football national champions and champions of the 1937 Rose Bowl. For this accomplishment, he was named captain of the Eastern College All-Star football team, where he teamed up with college players such as Vince Lombardi and John Hudaski for an exhibition game against the professional team, the Philadelphia Eagles. After his graduation from Pittsburgh, starting in 1938, Greene played four years of professional baseball in several lower-level leagues. His career was unfortunately ended due to an injury, at which point he decided to open a full-time private practice.
In 1942, Greene entered the U.S Army’s Dental Corps, where he served as the chief of dental service and obtained the rank of Major. He served in this position until he was honorably discharged in 1946. Later that year, he moved back to Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, where he opened his permanent private dental practice.
In 1949, while maintaining his dental practice, Greene took over the head coaching job for the men’s basketball team at Juniata College. Greene coached for Juniata College for twelve seasons during the years 1949-1961. Due to his profession, he earned the affectionate nickname “Doc”, and was called that by many of the players who he coached. During his first year coaching, the men’s basketball team did not enjoy much success, putting up a four-win and thirteen-loss record. However, during his first year at Juniata, Greene developed the “HAZ defense”. This was an alternate form of the popular zone defensive tactic used by many other basketball teams at the time.
Through Greene’s defense-first coaching style, many of the losses throughout his first season were extremely close, serving as another testament to his defensive coaching skill. The first home game under his watch was a loss to Bucknell University with a score of 51-48. While Greene’s first few seasons as coach did not prove successful; in the beginning of the 1953-1954 season, the team recorded five consecutive winning records. The first of this five-year streak was the school’s most successful up to that point in its history, boasting a 15-6 record. Through his twelve seasons, Greene became the first basketball coach in Juniata to obtain 100 wins. This was a significant accomplishment in the college’s history, as the three coaches that preceded led the team to only 72 wins combined. After his last season with the Juniata men’s basketball team, Greene had coached his way to being the most successful coach in the history of the Juniata Basketball program up to that point. Despite his five-year streak of winning records, he ended his coaching career at Juniata with a record of 100 wins to 131 losses.
In 1962, Greene closed his private practice in order to take a position at the local State Correctional Institution in Huntingdon. His position was in the Dental department, in which he created and instituted a completely new dental record administration program. This program remodeled the way the dental department organized and used their records and was so effective that it became the standard across correctional facilities across the entire state of Pennsylvania. Doc held this position until March 1978, when he retired.
Later in life, in October of 1987, Greene received an “Award of Distinction” from the University of Pittsburgh, one of the highest awards an athlete can achieve. Juniata College also created a men’s basketball tournament that has been held every year since 1992 in his honor, known as the “Doc Greene Tournament.” To this day, several schools join each year to compete in this tournament that was created in honor of Coach Greene’s efforts. He was also inducted into the Juniata College Hall of Fame in 1996.
On October 16, 1993, Dr. Thomas Arnold Greene passed away at the age of 79 in State College, PA.
Gabriel Gardner
Bibliography
Black, D. L. “Dr. Thomas Arnold Greene”. Find a Grave. Find a Grave, 2023. Accessed 2-1-2023. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/63151604/thomas-arnold-greene.
Juniata College, “Arnold Greene Takes Over.” The Juniatian (Huntingdon, PA), Sept. 24, 1949.
Juniata College, “Bucknell Tops Juniata by 2 Points.” The Juniatian (Huntingdon, PA). Dec. 9, 1949.
Juniata College, “Dr. T. Arnold Greene.” Juniata Sports. Juniata College, 2022. Accessed 2-1-2022. https://www.juniatasports.net/Inside_Juniata_Athletics/Alumni/hof/ByYear/1996/1996_HOF_Greene.
Kaylor, Earl C. Juniata College: Uncommon Vision, Uncommon Loyalty: The History of an Independent College in Pennsylvania Founded by the Brethren 1876-2001. (Juniata College, 2001)