Just as he did way back then, he could now admit:
“Juggling is pretty cool.”
When he was a first grader, he showed an uncanny hand-eye coordination that he parlayed into an ability to juggle. He started with scarves and soon graduated to tennis balls, plastic rings, oranges, apples, ink pens – you name it, he juggled it.
He made his school juggling team as a second grader and by third grade he was one of the most talented performers on a team made up mostly of fifth graders.
“I was the youngest one of the team,” he said. “We used to go out and perform at half time of the high school basketball games.”
After the Bengals had overwhelmed the visiting Cleveland Browns, 31-17, Sunday, Green – known for his soft-spoken assessments and humble ways – sat his locker in the team’s post-game dressing quarters and thought back to those first juggling shows he did in grade school.
“I clowned,” he admitted. “I acted like a clown out there. I did all kinds of things – Chinese yo-yos, whatever.”
People loved him, Anne O’Sullivan — the Beech Hill physical education teacher who has now guided the juggling team for 20 years – once told a South Carolina reporter. He really had a knack.
And then, as a fifth grader, Green quit the team.
“I didn’t think it was cool anymore,” he said with laugh. “I thought ‘You can’t go to middle school on the juggling team.’”
He switched to football and everyone now knows how that went: First team All-SEC two years in a row at Georgia. First-round draft pick by the Bengals and a Pro Bowl pick his first five NFL seasons.
He’s one of the best receivers in the league and Sunday he showed why he may be the best.
He leads the league in receptions and against the Browns, Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton threw to him eight times and every time Green made the catch. His eight receptions were good for 169 yards, one touchdown and two highlight-reel grabs.
Midway through the third quarter, he streaked down the right sideline with Browns rookie cornerback Briean Boddy-Calhoun matching him stride for stride. Dalton still threw the ball and when Green turned back for it, he found himself blinded by the sun.
“It was in the sun and at first all I saw was black,” he said. “At the last second I saw it and put my (right) hand out. It was the only way to get it.”
He made the spectacular one-handed grab for what would be his second 48-yard reception of the day. The play set up a Mike Nugent field goal a few plays later.
But it’s the first 48-yard reception that everyone will remember.
As the first half was coming to a close, the Bengals were at midfield and Dalton tried a final Hail Mary heave into the end zone.
Green was the first of three Bengals receivers to get to the end zone and as the rainbow pass started to make its way back to earth, he found himself surrounded by five Cleveland defenders.
Browns safety Ibraheim Campbell had a hold if his left arm. Cornerback Jamar Taylor was bulldozing into his calves and linebacker Christian Kirksey was on his back.
Somehow, Green still managed to leap and with his right hand he tipped the ball back down to himself. As he fell, he juggled the ball three more times with his right hand until he pulled it into his chest for the 48-yard touchdown catch.
“All I could see were people all the way around me,” Green said. “I didn’t look at nobody, just the ball. I was thinking: ‘I’m gonna get my head blown off in here by someone coming in.’ As I was waiting for the ball, I kept thinking. ‘Come on! Get to me before someone smacks me!’
“And then it was like. ‘Oh hello, I got the ball’ and then I just tried to hang on.”
He saw a bit of the replay on the overhead video board and admitted. ‘Yeah, it was pretty sweet. It probably was one of my top five catches.
“And, yeah, I did use a little of my old juggling skills, I guess. It was cool.”
Being a kid again
Juggling didn’t just put him center stage as a grade school kid, it pulled him out of the shadows and some real sadness, his mother Dora once explained.
In so many words, she told ESPN, it helped him be a kid again.
When A.J. was just 4, he was headed to a school carnival with his beloved older brother Avionce and two cousins. His aunt was driving.
Another driver going the other way veered into their lane and forced his aunt to swerve into a stand of trees.
Avionce, who was just 9 and wearing his seat belt, died of a broken neck. The aunt ended up paralyzed from the waist down and the two cousin got permanent plates in their legs.
A.J. was unscathed.
He felt guilty afterward and terribly sad and lost.
His mom said he drew into a shell and often stayed in his room.
Then as a first grader he discovered juggling and the cloud lifted.
When he performed, he no longer was withdrawn.
Like he said, he became a clown.
Play of the year
Dalton explained the Hail Mary play after Sunday’s game:
“When you are in those situations and you get guys down there, a guy has to make a play. And I didn’t even know what happened. I just knew the crowd was screaming. I didn’t even know who caught it. When I saw everybody was high-fiving A.J., I knew who it was then.
“If it’s not the play of the year this year, then there has to be one that is really, really good: For how he tipped it and then it went off someone else and he goes and gets it with one hand. It just goes to show how good his hands are.”
Bengals cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones, who has been in the NFL 10 seasons and gone up against all the league’s best receivers, sang Green’s praises as well:
“Words can’t explain what just happened out there. He’s the ‘It.’ Some guys have the ‘It’ factor:
“Randy Moss – ‘It!’
“A.J. Green – ‘It!’
“What he does is unbelievable.”
And to think A.J. Green once thought being able to juggle wasn’t cool at all.
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