Best Nicknames In NFL History

meangreen11 · May 25, 2021

6)---"Mean" Joe Greene

Joe Greene got his nickname playing collegiate football for the North Texas Mean Green defense. One of the best defensive linemen in NFL history, Greene was a 10-time Pro Bowl selection and a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers "Steele Curtain" defensive line in the 1970s. Greene, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of fame in 1987, played 13 seasons in the NFL (1969-1981), all with the Steelers.

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Stix · May 25, 2021

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to ESPN for a succinct and CORRECT explanation!

greenminer · May 25, 2021

This is closer, but it is still misleading.

To my knowledge, Joe was never Mean while he was in Denton. He was just "Big Joe". Upon drafting him, the Pittsburg media attached the name to him because of where he came from - the Mean Green. To the credit of the above article, it doesn't say UNT Mean Green is named after Joe. But it does kind of imply he was "Mean" while he was here.

I have copied and pasted here the exchange I personally had with Randy Galloway about this. Randy was our beat writer at the time.

....as any of those guys who played on those teams can tell you, the Mean Green had nothing to do with one of my all time favorites--Joe...that came about in Pittsburgh...once Joe was drafted, the Pitt media thought Mean Green was Mean Greene....The Mean Joe thing started there... but it brought great attention to the school. .he was a great player, and still the nicest guy ever...I still see him in press boxes around the league, scouting....but Freddie told that story a thousand times back in the day....he was looking for a hook to get attention for the team....and his wife gave it too him...as in North Texas green....

....anyways, if it interests y'all, years ago I purchased the domain meangreenmoniker.com, as a resource for the internet to know about our history and specifically, what I believe is one of the most unique monikers in all of college athletics. Galloway gave me permission to use his article Mean Green on the Loose! but time and money are rare in my life right now. If anyone wants to help out with the web design, I would love it. It exists, but I threw it together hastily and IMO needs some clean up.