No Weight Too Heavy: How USA Lacrosse Strength Coach Turned Tragedy into Purpose

At USA Lacrosse, only one guy can do all of that, and he’s not one of the elite National Team Development Program athletes competing for a spot on a U15, U17 or U19 youth national team.

He’s Reuben Green III, a strength and conditioning specialist at MedStar Health.

“It’s like a party trick,” Green said about his flexibility. “It’s because I’m a bigger guy nobody expects me to drop down and do that.” 

He expects everything out of his athletes, though. And there have been hundreds of them — including current NFL players whom he trained at Power Four schools Stanford and Ohio State.

But before any of them, there were his siblings and his cousins, their training ground his grandparents’ farm in Memphis, Tennessee. Jeremy and Jordan Tuggle, Green’s cousins, and Caleb Green, his younger brother, were unbelievable athletes. Pickup basketball games on the farm’s gravel driveway were always competitive. 

Tucker did everything. He played chess and the cello, football and basketball. No seasons off, even as a kid. “He was vibrant,” Green said.

Caleb Green played junior college football, made it to two national championships, got to Akron and competed in the Boca Raton Bowl.

Reuben Green wasn’t too shabby himself. He entertained offers to play semi-pro and indoor football, but the player lifestyle was never meant for him. When he was 19 and Tucker was 12, they got into a car accident. Tucker didn’t make it. Green was behind the wheel. 

The weight room helped Green cope with the grief and guilt. It was the origin point of his 20-year long journey into the strength and conditioning profession.

His first stop was Youngstown State.

“He wasn’t just wiping down benches. He was in the meat and potatoes,” said John Patrick, the Ohio school’s director of strength and performance. “He was there for the 6 a.m. staff meetings. He was considered one of us.”

There, Green learned the science behind strength and conditioning. He learned that he could make the weight room his office.

This was also where Green became familiar with lacrosse.

“I knew some people who played lacrosse, so I picked up a stick and tried to throw around with them,” Green said. “I just couldn’t get the hang of it.”

At Youngstown State, Green worked for “The Rubber Band Man,” Dick Hartzell. Hartzell invented Flex Band, the first resistance band of its kind, which athletes now use in gyms around the world, including at USA Lacrosse. Greene earned his bachelor’s degree in human performance and exercise science.

After Youngstown, Green made multiple pitstops. He became a personal trainer, interned at Stanford, Ohio State and North Texas and then he found his new home base as a graduate assistant at Akron.

Working for director of football strength and conditioning Matt Gildersleeve, Green did everything he could for the Zips.

“He was so dedicated, and the only way we could make it work was having him live in my basement,” Gildersleeve said. “Reuben comes off as a hard-nosed aggressive strength coach, but that guy is a teddy bear.”

Caleb Green was a running back at Akron at the time. He was invited to NFL tryouts but tore his Achilles. You would think that having a brother as a strength coach would make the recovery easier, and it did, but not because of his profession, but rather because Green tore his patella just a couple weeks later.

“I’m the strength coach but he pushed me,” Green said. “We had a challenge to do 100 squats a day, and I’m not going to say I lost, but Caleb did it better than me for sure.” 

Green found his way to Morgan State in Baltimore, where he was the head performance coach for men’s basketball. Seven years later, he made it to MedStar, a longtime partner of USA Lacrosse and the U.S. National Teams.

“I had a goal of being a pro athlete. Now being on the field where I’m coaching elite level athletes for USA Lacrosse, that’s different,” Green said. “I’m a part of their roadmap. Here’s the program, this is the roadmap and they drive it. Athletes trust me to take care of them so they can accomplish their goals.”

It took a lot of convincing for Green to leave college athletics. His younger brother told him it was the right move. The two always sought each other’s counsel.

On January 10, however, Caleb Green’s life was cut short. He died by homicide, according to his brother. He was 30. Services were held in Columbus and Memphis. Reuben Green was a pallbearer in both cities and said the family is still seeking justice for his brother’s death.

“Caleb helped people out every day,” Green said. “I hope that, today, I can give just a quarter of the amount of love people showed him when he passed away. Caleb was the best athlete I’ve ever trained.”

Green pours his love into his work and you feel it when he’s on the field measuring broad jumps, in the weight room fixing someone’s exercise form or just talking to you in the USA Lacrosse tunnel on the way to the locker rooms. 

He carries on his brother and cousin’s legacies with every squat, deadlift and split he does. Green strives to make every athlete better. He doesn’t stop until the job is done. If Caleb and Jordan were still alive, Green said, he would have two words for them.

Thank you.

Every athlete who has trained with Green — including the 144 U.S. Youth National Team players competing this weekend in the Brogden Cup — would say the same.