Packer: Green learned from O'Neill, learning from Pearl

"Coaching has always been in my blood," Green said. "My father was my high school coach at Sweetwater, so I've just been raised around basketball."

Aaron was a starter for Sweetwater from 1991-95. It was there that Kevin O'Neill recruited Green to play at UT.

"He was a great recruiter, and he had great assistants who stayed on me," Green said. "I don't know that I was the greatest player on their board, but they wanted to keep the best talent in the state at home.

"We had a great class in 1995 with Brandon Wharton, Scott Moore, Antonio Harris, Rashard Lee, Torrey Harris and myself. Four of us were from Tennessee. Only Rashard and Torrey weren't from this state. I like to think that we kind of started the turnaround for Tennessee basketball."

The treatment O'Neill dished out to Green is legendary. Former players still talk about the way O'Neill would just verbally abuse Green during practices.

"You know, it's kind of funny now that I'm coaching (at Cleveland High School), my players will tell me that I'm riding them hard and I'll tell them that they have no idea how bad it could be," Green said.

"Yet I learned a lot from O'Neill and I use a lot of the things he taught me today. I learned an unbelievable work ethic and gained a lot of defensive knowledge from him. If we had a 32 -hour practice, three hours of it was rebounding and defense. Then Jerry Green came along and we spent most of our time working on offense. I guess I took a little from both of those coaches.

"We didn't score a lot for O'Neill because we were so young. So many people say that he was just a defensive coach and couldn't coach offense. I think that if he had stayed a few more years we would have turned into a good offensive team. He brought in the talent, and then Jerry Green got to reap the benefits once we were upper classmen.

"I really think that coaching is overrated. My dad always told me that a coach is only as good as the players that he has. Take this year at Cleveland, for instance. In my six years there, we've had six consecutive 20-win seasons. Now this year, we're just 11-10. That's because we lost all five starters from last year's team. I'm starting one freshman, three sophomores and one junior."

UT is recruiting junior Drazen Zlovaric, a 6-foot-9 junior from Serbia. It has allowed Green a chance to get close to UT coach Bruce Pearl and his staff.

"I've gotten a chance to get to know Coach Pearl and his staff over the past year and a half and have been so impressed with what they've been able to accomplish," Packer said.

"At that level, most of the coaches know their X's and O's, but Coach Pearl's ability to deal with people has been the key to his success. I love to learn from successful people. That's why I like to go to UT's practices, when I can, and learn from them. Last summer our staff got together with assistant coach Jason Shay and looked at some film of how UT runs their press. We use that press now and have had some great success with it.

"I'd love to be on that staff someday. I think that any player would love to go back to his alma mater and help in any way that he could. He's a guy who treats everyone with respect, and that's why so many people respect him. It's fun to see the way those guys play at Tennessee. They're making all of the former players very proud to have worn the orange.

"And, seeing Coach Pearl come to the Lady Vols game painted orange, now there's a guy who understands the ability to motivate people. Now that was cool!"

Mark Packer hosts the Locker Room at 10 p.m. on Sunday on My East Tennessee TV. His guest tonight is Aaron Green.