“Without Louis Mulkey, I’m not sure A.J. would be here,” said Bulldogs coach Mark Richt.
Mulkey was a fireman who, when he wasn’t at the station, was working as an assistant junior varsity basketball and football coach when he first spotted Green. It was difficult not to notice a 6-foot-1 eighth grader who already could dunk.
Mulkey became a major part of all his young players’ lives because he’d do whatever it took to help them along.
“In my eighth grade year, he sat in my math class. It was crazy. I wasn’t doing too good, was talking and stuff, and he sat through it a couple weeks making sure I was paying attention,” Green said.
Along with Summerville school counselors, this fireman/coach helped Green get through a reading disability and urged him along when there were real questions about whether he would academically qualify for Georgia.
It was Mulkey who drove Green the 275 miles to Athens to attend a Nike camp, the first time he laid eyes on campus. And it was Mulkey who, on little sleep and after loading up the pepperoni rolls his wife packed, brought Green back to Athens his junior year. That was when the young star verbally committed to the Bulldogs.