Growing up in Alaska, senior Jack Green never would have imagined coming to American to continue his soccer career.

Ever since he could walk, Green remembers passing a soccer ball around with his dad. After spending several years playing soccer indoors in Anchorage, he made the decision to move to Portland when he was 16. 

The decision to move was just one step in a series of events with convenient timing and chance encounters that shaped Green’s soccer career into what it is today. 

On an hour-long connecting flight to visit a school in Atlanta, Green decided it wasn’t worth falling asleep on the plane and instead struck up a conversation with the man in the seat next to him – not knowing this was his future teammate and roommate’s father. After hearing about AU briefly on this plane ride, a few weeks later Green noticed that the AU men’s soccer page was following him on Twitter and decided to reach out.

It just so happened that AU was playing the University of Portland the next week and Green was able to go to the game and talk with the coaches. Just a few weeks later, Green visited DC and got to spend fall break on campus and meet the rest of the team.

Within two months of hearing about American, Green was committed to play soccer at AU the next year. 

Beyond AU, Green has had the opportunity to play on the US soccer team in the Maccabiah Games twice, first in 2017 right before moving to Portland, and again in 2022 as a rising college senior. The Maccabiah Games, taking place every four years in Israel, is an international competition featuring over 35 sports. The US men’s soccer team got to tour Israel for three weeks leading up to the games, an opportunity for team bonding and memorable sightseeing. 

“It wasn’t about the soccer for me but the experience. Beating Belgium 7-0 was great but it’s the little moments of being with the team that I’m going to remember,” says Green. Being able to compete in the games a second time years later, he was able to notice growth in himself and appreciate the experience even more.

Green’s proudest moment of his soccer career so far is scoring in the NCAA Tournament against Jacksonville in 2021 – his first collegiate goal. Above the sport itself, he emphasizes the personalities of his teammates and the camaraderie of the team which make his experience particularly memorable. 

Throughout his soccer career, when faced with tough choices, Green thinks back to his high school senior quote: “take the risk or lose the chance.” Reflecting on risks he’s taken including his move to Portland and his decision to come to American, Green thinks through big choices by asking “what if?” 

“I have the mindset that if I don’t take the opportunity, then I don’t know what could happen. And if things don’t work out, they don’t work out and that’s just a part of life,” he says. 

Green, a finance major, is looking forward to finishing his final season at AU. He joined a program in a rebuilding phase that won just three games in 2019. One year later, after being picked to finish ninth in the shortened 2020-21 season, the Eagles captured a Patriot League Championship. In Green's junior year, AU advanced to the PL's title game yet again.

“Now being a senior, the biggest thing for me is having helped turn around a program that was struggling in the beginning," says Green. “Hopefully I've helped to leave it in a better place.”