Beth Green

By Mike Plant

Many Wayne County Sports Hall of Famers were the best in the league at their respective sport while in high school, and some were in college. Beth Green took it to another level collegiately at Wittenberg.

Playing volleyball in her first fall on the Wittenberg campus, Green, a 1990 Wooster High graduate, made an instant impact while lettering as a freshman. That was a prelude to the next three years, when she earned three consecutive team MVP and first-team all-conference honors. She was named the North Coast Athletic Conference Player of the Year as a junior and then repeated the feat as a senior.

If possible, her basketball accolades at Witt were even more impressive. Green was again a three-time team MVP and first-team All-NCAC pick. As the team’s co-captain, her career culminated in 1994 when, as a senior, she was a first-team Div. III All-America honoree while leading the Tigers to a 24-4 record, including a perfect 16-0 mark in the NCAC.

Green was the first Wittenberg women’s basketball player to become an All-American and the perfect NCAC record was the first ever achieved by an NCAC women’s basketball team. Upon graduation, Green was Wittenberg’s all-time leading scorer, and she’s currently No. 2.

Just for good measure, or perhaps for something to do in the spring, Green lettered twice with the Wittenberg women’s lacrosse team.

At Wittenberg, Green was named the M. Alice Geiger Award recipient, named for the school’s first woman graduate and recognizing a senior woman for outstanding contributions to the campus.

While suiting up in the fall, winter and spring at Wooster High, Green earned nine letters — three in basketball, volleyball and track. She was All-Ohio, All-District and All-Federal League in both basketball and volleyball. In 1990, she was named the school’s Female Athlete of the Year.

Green’s favorite moment in sports came in her senior volleyball season in a district final against Canton McKinley, when the Generals rallied to win in three games for the first regional appearance in program history.

“What I remember most is the camaraderie and school spirit,” she said of her time at WHS.  “I loathed our archrivals and loved how cool it was to be a General. I truly loved playing for my high school and being in the trenches with my teammates. We had some fierce battles and I loved every minute of it and would do it all again.”

Also a member of the Wooster High and Wittenberg Halls of Fame for athletics, Green now resides in Florida. She is in the banking business, where lessons she learned in athletics continue to resonate.

 “Sports taught me perseverance, hard work and humility — the sports field has a way of creating the most amazing highs, but also the lowest of lows,” Green said. “Just when you think you are all that and a bag of chips, it pulls the rug right out from under you and shows you the hard lesson of humility.

“You are only as good as your last game and in the end it’s just a game. There is so much more to life so just enjoy being out there and having the ability to compete. That is a lesson that has come with age and perspective.”