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Dennis Green, 1949-2016

NFL coach sued Nancy Pelosi’s husband for withheld wages

Dennis Green
Dennis Green / AP

Legendary NFL Coach Dennis Green died after suffering an apparent heart attack on Friday, according to multiple reports.

Green served as a National Football League head coach for 13 seasons for both the Minnesota Vikings and Arizona Cardinals, amassing a record of 113-94. He left the NFL in 2006 and returned to football after Pelosi and his business partner, Silicon Valley entrepreneur William Hambrecht approached him about their upstart United Football League.

Green’s death came in the midst of his years-long quest to get House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s husband, financier Paul Pelosi, to pay him about $1 million in back wages. Mr. Pelosi failed to respond to a Washington Free Beacon request for comment, nor did he say whether he planned to pay Green’s widow the money.

Green agreed to coach Pelosi’s Sacramento Mountain Lions for a salary of $1 million. He relocated his family from San Diego to Sacramento to take the job. The league was beset by financial problems from the start, with players and coaches receiving infrequent paychecks far below the rates stipulated in their contracts.

Several players banded together in a class action lawsuit to get Hambrecht and Pelosi to pay up. Green left the league in 2011 and filed suit in 2012 to receive his full pay.

"[The team] acted willfully, intentionally, and maliciously in order to fraudulently induce Green to move from his home in San Diego," the suit says. "[He] carried out the responsibilities of his contract in justifiable reliance upon Hambrecht’s promises that he would stand behind the commitments of UFL."

When the league folded in 2012, Green still had not received his full pay. An arbitrator ordered the league to pay Green $990,000 in back wages in 2014, but the coach had yet to receive a dime when he died. He filed a lawsuit attempting to force Pelosi and Hambrecht, the league’s chief investors, to personally pay him.

Paul Pelosi’s investment portfolio has made Nancy Pelosi one of the wealthiest members of Congress, with a net worth of more than $40 million. The UFL was of the couple’s worst investments, however. Mr. and Mrs. Pelosi lost between $2 to $10 million on the league in 2011, according to financial disclosures. Mr. Pelosi gave the league a cash infusion valued at between $2.75 and $6.6 million that year even as he refused to pay Green.

"It’s clear that this is the way Pelosi does business. He clearly doesn’t think he has to honor this contract," Green told the Washington Free Beacon in 2012. "He’s making me fight for the money I already worked to earn."

The Minnesota Vikings, whom Green led to a 15-1 record in the 1998 season, hailed Green as a "transformative" coach" in a release.

"We are incredibly saddened by the sudden passing of former Vikings Head Coach Dennis Green. Denny made his mark in ways far beyond being an outstanding football coach," the team said in a statement to Yahoo Sports. "His tenure as one of the first African American head coaches in both college and the NFL was also transformative. Our thoughts and prayers are with the entire Green family."

Green is survived by wife Marie and four children.