Ryan's Blog

From early childhood Marshall Greene has always excelled in sports. There was never a time when he was not involved in something athletic. “I am the kinda guy that will always strive to be the best at whatever I do, and no matter what, I will overcome any obstacle to reach my goal,” Greene said.

Tracing his athletic background: “When I was younger I played a lot of baseball, mostly county little league and backyard baseball with friends.  When I got to middle school I continued to do a lot of baseball and even did a little soccer, which was fun,” he said.  Remembering his son’s childhood, his father, Morgan Sr., added, “Marshall has always been very driven in sports, he can’t get enough of them it seems.  Over the years I have enjoyed watching him wrestle, play baseball, and soccer when he was younger.”

It was not until high school that Greene discovered his true athletic potential.  He was fully involved in the baseball and wrestling teams through his four years at Bayshore High School in Bradenton, Florida.

While baseball was his true passion, it was wrestling in which he truly excelled. “I really liked baseball a lot at Bayshore, but I found myself spending a lot of time with wrestling.  We had a wrestling coach at Bayshore that was very demanding of us, and made us all strive to do our best to succeed.”

Succeed he did, rising to become one of the best wrestlers in the school.  He consistently placed well in tournaments and matches, earning him high ranks in the district and state levels.

With Greene’s success in wrestling, full ride scholarships were real possibilities. It was during his senior year, however, that disaster struck.  In a spur of the moment game of football, Greene was tackled hard injuring his right shoulder, which had already seen its fair share of injures throughout his high school career.  What followed was surgery to repair torn tendons on his shoulder, thus ending a promising future in wrestling.

“It was really devastating for me, just to be going into senior year and having this happen.  I basically went from wrestling being my life and either competing or practicing every day to having a cast and sitting around my house,” Greene recalled.

Greene’s brother Morgan Jr. saw how much this affected his younger brother, and noticed how depressed he became.  Since Morgan Jr. is hearing impaired he used sign language with his wife Heidi who relayed this: “He was devastated. Wrestling was him, it was what he did, what he was known for.  After he had the surgery, Heidi and I both saw just how crushed he was.”

In time the shoulder healed and Greene was once again able to use his arm, yet it was never quite the same.

With time still left in his senior year at Bayshore, and swimming season right around the corner, Greene decided to take a dip in the pool and joined the swim team.  Greene did not go into the water dry, however, having been a lifeguard at the neighborhood pool since freshman year.  With this experience and a natural swiftness in the water, Greene received some success on the swim team and had an enjoyable time with the sport.  Greene’s mom Ginny had this to add about watching her son: “It was pretty cool to see him swim.  He was always a great swimmer and it was neat to see him compete.”

There was also a little swimming history in the Greene family.  His older sister, Michelle, had been a swimmer at Bayshore High. Thinking of her brother, Michelle said, “I really enjoyed watching him compete in the water.  It brought me back to the days when I would swim on Saturday mornings, and seeing him in the water was special.”

After swimming ended, so ended Green’s high school sporting career.  He left a mark at Bayshore, especially in wresting.  Reminiscing, Greene added, “I really liked the sports I did at Bayshore.  They kept me out of trouble and I was able to have a lot of fun and make some really good friends.”

With high school in the books, Greene worked at various different jobs, including continuing at the local pool and even becoming one of the wrestling coaches at his alma mater.  There was still something missing though.  Like sports Greene was striving for something more.  Greene soon found that only having a high school diploma was an obstacle to a better job.  Not being content with pick up jobs Greene tried out for lifeguarding on a larger plane… and he got it.

Greene says, “I love this job.  It is really demanding and hard work, but it pays off with the scenery.”  The scenery is the blue green water and white sandy beaches of the Gulf of Mexico.  Greene is a certified fulltime Manatee County lifeguard on the west coast of Florida.  The boy who loved to play sports has become the man who saves lives in the Gulf.