The Story
Behind the Stage

I grew up the son of Victor Green — an NFL legend who played for the New York Jets.

That sentence shaped everything about my childhood. My last name carried weight before I ever touched a football field. People expected things of me before I knew what those expectations even were. And honestly? I loved the game. I was fast, I was competitive, and I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps.

But underneath the surface, I was carrying something I couldn't name and didn't know how to talk about. Anxiety. Self-doubt. The constant feeling that no matter what I did, it would never be enough — never enough to fill the shoes I'd been handed, never enough to match the legacy of the man whose name I carried. In the football culture I grew up in, you didn't admit that stuff. You were tough. You pushed through. So that's exactly what I did — until it nearly broke me.

When I got to the University of North Carolina, I was buried. Fourth string. Fifth string. For two full years I watched from the sideline, working harder than I ever had, wondering if I'd ever see the field. The anxiety got worse. The self-doubt became deafening. I was putting in the physical work every single day, but my mind was working against me. I was losing confidence. I was struggling to perform at the level I knew I was capable of — and the gap between what I knew I could be and what I was showing was tearing me apart.

The turning point came when I stopped treating my mental health as something separate from my athletic training and started treating it as part of the work. I sought support. I started working with counselors. I built self-awareness. I developed mental skills — self-talk, composure techniques, mental reps — with the same discipline I brought to the weight room. I wasn't broken. I was just training the wrong side of the equation.

And it changed everything. Once I began implementing mental training into my regular routine, I became a more confident, composed, and successful player. At UNC, I started seven games in my final season. I transferred to Indiana University, where I continued to grow — on the field and off — and earned my Master's. Then I went to Sam Houston State, where I kept building. And ultimately, I signed with the Philadelphia Eagles.

Not because I suddenly became more talented. Because I finally learned how to get out of my own way. I arrived at that rookie mini camp a more confident, complete player than I'd ever been — not because my body had changed, but because my mind finally had.

Now I speak to schools, universities, and athletic programs across the country — not as someone who read about mental health in a textbook, but as someone who lived it.

I founded The Mind Over Muscle Foundation because I believe every athlete deserves access to the mental tools that changed my life — not just the ones who happen to play at schools that can afford them. I served on the NCAA Division I Football Oversight Committee and the ACC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, working to create better mental health support systems for the athletes who come after me. I led executive mental health committees at both UNC and Indiana, served on UNC's Faculty Athletics Committee, and was a national finalist for the Arthur Ashe Sports Scholar Award.

If I can help one athlete stop fighting themselves and start training their mind, then every step of my journey — every year buried on the depth chart, every moment of doubt, every hard conversation — was worth it.