Leo Roth

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Green B. Williams played hockey at RIT from 1973-1977

Williams died in an Air Force training accident in 1984

The lone orange seat in RIT's new arena is dedicated to Williams

Rochester Institute of Technology's new hockey rink has just opened but already there is a story to tell.

Just head to Section 107, Row K, Seat 8 at one end directly above the net. It is the only orange seat in a bank of gray and black seats in the sparkling $38 million Gene Polisseni Center.

The seat was placed there for reasons that represent the very best in us as administrators, coaches, players, fans, students and citizens. An orange seat to honor the memory of a man whose name was Green.

Green B. Williams was an RIT hockey player who lost his life in a pilot training accident in 1984 while serving in the United States Air Force.

"He did a lot in a very short time and had an impact on a lot of people," said his sister, Carla Williams Rossiter of South Yarmouth, Mass. "People are still thinking about him and talking about him and it's been 30 years since he died. I'm fascinated by that but it makes me feel good that they are, because I, for one, know what a special guy he was."

Williams was a goaltender during RIT's wild and wooly formative years of hockey, those teams of the 1960s and '70s that laid the foundation for the Division II and III national championships of the 1980s and the slick Division I men's and women's programs we see today.

You won't find Green's name in the Tigers' record books. The teams he played on from 1973-74 to 1976-77 seasons never had a winning record.

But Green Williams was the essence of what it means to be a dedicated friend and a teammate, a son and a brother, and a graduate of a school with squadrons of proud, successful alumni. He was the essence of what it means to be a patriot.

An assistant captain and winner of the Outstanding Senior Award his final season of strapping on those heavy leather pads and gripping that wooden Sher-Wood stick that were the goaltender's tools of the day, Williams earned a business degree at RIT.

Back home he became a volunteer fireman, earned his pilot's license, and opened the first sports bar in his hometown. "Hanger One'' had a small airplane crashing through the roof, a testament to Green's fun-loving side and his keen interest in aviation. His life was beginning to soar when he answered a call to serve his country.

He joined the Air Force with a dream of flying C-5 transports and was accepted into flight school in Columbus, Miss. But on March 21, 1984 with just a month left in his training he was killed in a mid-air collision, eight days shy of his 28th birthday and three months shy of his wedding date.

"Let's put a Green seat in the orange house," the fundraising campaign literature said.

And so they did.

Williams' sister, father (Green II), family friends, RIT alumnus, former teammates and fraternity brothers at Phi Sigma Kappa have raised nearly $50,000 for the rink's capital campaign (donations are still being accepted at the Green B. Williams Memorial Fund).

The orange seat counts towards the arena's attendance of 4,300 and it's available to sit in. But its purpose is to stand as a symbol of commitment to school, team and country. It exists so that the story of Green B. Williams can be retold to new generations of RIT hockey players and fans.

"To this day, every time I see a jet stream I think of him," said Greece's Jim Stanley, a fraternity brother who played football at RIT.

Stanley and Jeff Begoon, Williams' hockey teammate and roommate, were to be ushers in Green's wedding.

"He was my roommate and living in a fraternity house it was a three-ring circus," said Begoon of New Canaan, Conn. "Greeny was the nicest guy in the world — would give you the shirt off of his back. He loved the ladies, loved his beer, loved to have a good time and he was just a great guy."

The kind you don't forget.

When Tom Keene, another RIT teammate, floated the idea of placing an orange seat in the new rink in honor of their friend while helping contribute to the Tiger Power Play fund-raising campaign, it took off like a fast break up ice. Keene got his inspiration from the red seat that honors another Williams — Ted — who hit a 502-foot home run at Fenway Park in 1946.

With help from the Boston Bruins alumni, Carla Williams Rossiter had already established an award in her brother's memory that provides financial assistant to youth players best exemplifying "effort and attitude" in the Amherst Hockey Association. Since 2002 the RIT player with the highest grade point average is handed the Green B. Williams Award.

But when Carla was told her little brother's hockey and fraternity brothers wanted to place an orange seat and plaque in the new RIT arena in his honor, she was moved to tears. In a meeting on Cape Cod with Adam Platzer, RIT's director of development, she pledged to match donations.

"This has been one of the better things I've worked on, unbelievable actually," Platzer said.

Carla said their mother started Green in hockey and drum lessons because he had energy to burn. He was a defenseman until he was asked by his high school coach to play net his junior year, just until the regular goalie got his grades up. Williams helped his team reach the state finals at the Boston Garden.

"He was always willing to do whatever to help his team,'' said Carla, who went to Ithaca College.

She was visiting her mother in Florida when the Air Force sent a captain, a nurse and chaplain to the door. Her mother fainted when the news was delivered.

"When we got her back around, the first thing I said to her was 'Mom, Green did more in his 27 years than most people do in a lifetime and he had such a positive impact on people, so don't have any regrets,' " Carla said. "She turned and said, 'At least he will never grow old.' We always remember him in the RIT net with that mustache."

Ritter Arena, the Tigers' former home, was fairly new when Williams arrived on campus. The team, coached 12 seasons by Daryl Sullivan during that era, had a colorful cast of characters (including McQuaid coach Al Vyverberg) and a "cult'' following as it entertained students during long winters.

"We had a ball," said Begoon, whose oldest son, Ryan, is a freshman defenseman at Harvard. "To be honest, between the hockey team and the fraternity house, it was more like the movie Slap Shot and the movie Animal House when we were there and jack assin' around. These guys today are real student athletes."

Last spring thanks to an invitation from coach Wayne Wilson arranged by Stanley, Carla and Begoon presented the Green Williams Award at the RIT hockey banquet.

"They couldn't decide who to give it to because three or four of these guys had 4.0s,'' said Begoon, who with Stanley attended RIT's trip to the Frozen Four in Detroit in 2010. "They've certainly come a long way and Coach Wilson has a lot to do with it."

A few years ago, Begoon played in a men's tournament in Syracuse and ran into 11 former RIT teammates, all 55 and up. There's no question that had he lived, Green Williams would've been there, too, Begoon said.

"It's a bonding experience, all the stuff that happens with a hockey team and it's something you never forget,'' Jeff said.

Begoon donated money to have his and Stanley's names engraved on the arm rests of seats at the Polisseni Center and requested they be seats 7 and 9 in Section 107, Row K. The bride groom surrounded by his ushers.

"When I think about Green, I always have smile on my face and that tells you something," his sister said. "He was just a great guy who loved people and he worked hard at everything he did."

The orange seat tells the story of Green B. Williams. It's right above the net.

Opener on Friday

The RIT men's hockey team will play its regular-season opener against St. Lawrence at the new Gene Polisseni Center at 7 p.m. on Friday. For ticket information, go to rithockey.com or call the Polisseni Center box office at (585) 475-4121.

Coming up

Expanded coverage for the opening night of the RIT men's hockey team and the Rochester Americans. In Friday's Democrat and Chronicle.