Photo description: Coach Tra Green with his dad, Larry Green. Photo by Jovell Rennie

Coach Traun Green, aka Coach Tra (pronounced Tre), grew up in East Anchorage in a big basketball family. He has been a volunteer coach, mostly with the YMCA, for 27 years. For 20 of them, he’s coached with his dad, Larry Green. 

Coach Chuck White, a legendary long-time coach at Bettye Davis East High, coached Tra’s dad and his uncles. When Tra was in high school, he was considering teaching. “Coach White goes, ‘You know, when you talk, people listen, you’d be a good coach.’ Gave me a couple books. I started reading. Took off from there.”  

For a day job, Tra worked for 20 years as a dispatcher with the University Police Department before shifting to work for the Alaska Court System. The first members of his family came to Anchorage in the ’60s, and now there are 70 relatives in town, he said.  

“We’ve been here forever, so everywhere we go, it’s like you have that community connection, and then the kids, even kids who I coached against, are like, ‘Hey, what’s up, Coach?’ They’ll come and talk to you. They come to the courthouse all the time, and it’s for good and bad reasons, but they feel comfortable because it’s somebody who they kind of know. You know, it makes a big difference, especially with some of the stuff they’re doing, it’s like you got that family feeling.” 

Connections like that make Anchorage special, he said.  

“I like how everybody helps everybody, no matter what. I mean my grandpa lived in Georgia. I went there all the time, and people, I could walk down the street and I’d look at them, and they’d just look away. Here, you make eye contact. You say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ And to me, that’s how you’re supposed to meet with people. In Anchorage, it’s just like you have that big community where everybody looks out for everybody. My dad always said, ‘Every kid is your kid.’ To me, if we did everything that way, I think we’d be okay. I think we’d be okay.”

“Being Alaskan” is a series of interviews with locals sharing what it means to be Alaskan, the community we share, and helping one another.