USF Athletics

USF Great Penny Greene Featured in Showtime Documentary

May 18, 2020

By JOEY JOHNSTON
Special to USF Athletics

TAMPA, MAY 18, 2020 – Penny Greene, the somewhat forgotten legend of USF men's basketball was a sweet-shooting swaggering big-city guard who saved his best performances for the biggest stages. When the program labored through an era without an on-campus facility, when it reached the brink of big-time status, Greene was the stabilizing factor.
 
"I feel like I was there to help grow the product and the brand into what it is today,'' said Greene, who became the first Bull to reach 1,000 career points. "It was a long, long time ago, but the memories are still very fresh.''
 
And now onto to current events.
 
Greene, a non-stop entrepreneur, remains knee-deep in basketball. He still plays a mean game of one-on-one, relishing the daily challenge of taking on men half his age. He's developing an online radio show (Basketball Culture) and is the founding CEO of a web site (DCBasketball.com) that chronicles and salutes the history and heritage of basketball in the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area.
 
Greene also has a prominent role in the recently released Showtime documentary — "Basketball Country: In The Water'' — which was produced by perennial NBA all-star Kevin Durant. The documentary explores the impact of basketball in Maryland's Prince George's County, which has produced nearly three dozen NBA players in the past two decades.
 
While the documentary opens with a flurry of highlight-reel shots, Greene proclaims, "PG County guy … what we do is provide wet buckets for America!''
 
Greene comments on the historical aspect of D.C. basketball, the legend of Len Bias and his county's hoops legacy.
 
"I wear PG County as a badge of honor,'' Greene said.
 
After his senior season at Parkdale High School, when he earned third-team honors on the area's prestigious All-Metropolitan squad, Greene was bound for USF, a program beginning its fourth season. How did that happen.
 
USF had just hired Virginia's Bill Gibson, a former ACC Coach of the Year, as its new head coach. Gibson had contacts throughout the D.C. area and one was a former player, a referee, who recommended Greene as just the type of offensive force that Gibson might needed to jump-start his new program.
 
Greene visited USF's campus, relishing the palm trees and balmy weather. His room overlooked a swimming pool. He believed in Gibson and saw a challenge in boosting USF's fledgling program. So he turned down his other choice — Georgetown University and its new head coach, a guy named John Thompson — and headed to Tampa.
 
"Penny was our superstar,'' said Tampa resident Jane Gibson, then a USF student and daughter of the head coach. "He sparkled and shined from the very beginning. My father really loved him.''
 
Then tragedy struck. In the summer following the 1974-75 season, his first at USF, Bill Gibson died of a heart attack. Greene was devastated, but redoubled his commitment to the Bulls when Gibson's chief assistant, Chip Conner, took over as head coach.
 
The legend of Pennington Sylvester Greene Jr. was just beginning.
 
Whether it was Dayton's Johnny Davis, North Carolina's Phil Ford and Auburn's Eddie Johnson, Greene quickly developed a reputation for playing great against All-American level performers.
 
On Feb. 19, 1977, during a 107-100 defeat against Iona at Madison Square Garden, Greene hit a new level. He had 29 points, including an unconscious run of 15 consecutive points in a five-minute second-half span. The Garden crowd gave Greene a standing ovation.
 
In his final year — after missing one redshirt season due to injury — he helped the Bulls to the Sun Belt Conference Tournament championship game, losing against Jacksonville 68-54 and falling just short of the program's first NCAA Tournament bid.
 
Still, Greene went out with a bang as the senior leader of an upstart starting lineup that included freshmen Jorge Azcoitia, Tony Washam, Hiram Green and Willie Redden.
 
He finished with 1,058 career points and contributed to a team (19-8 in 1975-76) that still holds the program record for single-season winning percentage. Greene went to training camp with the NBA's Atlanta Hawks, but didn't make the team. He has made a career in business, finally settling in the Atlanta area, where he has been active with the USF Alumni Association's chapter.
 
"I feel like I came a long way,'' Greene said. "When I was younger, people looked at my name and said, 'What kind of name is that for a guy?' So I got beat up over it.
 
"Then Penny Hardaway came along and Penny became a cool name. I'm happy that some people do remember my name. I'm so proud of what USF has become as a university and a basketball program. I'm a Bull all the way and I'm proud to have been on the ground floor of building up the basketball culture in Tampa.''
 
You can catch Green's commentary on the Showtime documentary, on his new radio show or on his growing web site.
 
"People are generally prone to forgetting things that happened in the previous generation,'' Greene said. "It was a long time ago. But I like to think we had a lot to do with getting the program moving in a positive direction.''

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About USF Men's Basketball
The USF men's basketball team is led by head coach Brian Gregory. On March 22, 2017, Gregory was introduced as the 10^th head coach in program history. He previously led programs at Georgia Tech (2011-16) and Dayton (2003-11). Gregory spent nearly a decade as an assistant coach under Michigan State's Hall of Fame head coach Tom Izzo and helped the Spartans win the 2000 NCAA National Championship. Gregory owns nearly 300 career head coaching wins and six postseason appearances, including the 2010 NIT Championship. In his second season at the helm of the Bulls, Gregory led the team to the best win turnaround in the NCAA, the most single-season wins in school history and the 2019 College Basketball Invitational championship. 

USF has retired three numbers in its 47-year history: Chucky Atkins (12), Charlie Bradley (30) and Radenko Dobras (31). The Bulls have earned three NCAA tournament bids, appeared in the NIT eight times and won the 2019 College Basketball Invitational.

For tickets, contact the USF Ticket Office at 1-800-Go-Bulls or by going online to USFBullsTix.com.