STARKVILLE — On this Wednesday, the final day of classes before the last set of final exams he will take as an undergraduate, Gerri Green was in a navy suit strolling around Mississippi State’s football complex. Most students like Green would be taking on their own academic endeavors, but here he was, providing a moment of inspiration for the younger generation of students.
To a fan base, Green has become known as a terror on the edge, playing his hybrid defensive end/outside linebacker position to 38 tackles, 11 for a loss, last season and a solidified spot on the starting line next season. To the Starkville community, he is one of its most consistent and appreciated mentors. Green spent a day this week giving students at Quad County Alternative School a tour of the Lew W. Seal Jr. Football Complex, one of many of his community outreach projects.
“Anytime there’s community service, anything I can go to, it’s an opportunity and I try to go,” Green said. “I want to leave an impact on Starkville and the Starkville community. Those people that come out and support us, and me coming from a similar community in Greenville, I know if I had somebody from my position to come talk to me, be around me and show me they care, it would’ve helped a lot.
“Give those kids hope, give them something they can be some day. I know it means a lot to them.”
Green has been doing things like this since his freshman season and has bounced around so many local schools that the names of them are running together. He started working with Quad County Alternative School this semester, but he’s visited other schools as part of the Read Across America project and individual mentoring and tutoring programs. He’s also volunteered at Henderson Ward Stewart Elementary garden, local hospitals and the MSU football program’s youth camps.
His impact has been felt. His time is crunched — he was only able to do this once during spring practice, when he and some teammates accompanied elementary schoolers on their walk to school — but his efforts once he gets the time are unquestioned.
“He’s a motivated speaker,” Dr. Watress Harris, the principal at Quad County Alternative School. “Some of our students, he was able to relate to their background. Our students wait for him to come speak to them.
“Some just show up, but not him. He puts 100 percent in. He’s fully committed to the two hours he stays, no distractions. It’s rare you get someone that young that comes along and really invests in the students.”
Harris has seen the results and some of that impact has been passed on Green: he’s been told after his visits to other schools that parents have called the next day to tell them the time with Green had an impact on their children. His best guess is that as a person in his early 20s from a similar background, he can relate to their lives and get an inspirational message to them that way.
He’s happy to do it.
“I enjoy all of it,” Green said. “When you see those kids, when they get to meet us and see us, it’s like when they see you you put a smile on a kid’s face. Knowing you had that opportunity makes you feel better.”
Follow Dispatch sports writer Brett Hudson on Twitter @Brett_Hudson
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