The NBAs 38-Year-Old Virgin: A.C. Green, the Iron Man with the Iron Will

If Donald Trump was the biggest douchebag of the 1980s, Earvin Magic Johnson was the most lascivious. The Los Angeles Lakers star had an insatiable appetite for sex, often retiring to the team sauna after games to get it on before emerging for post-game interviews. And his mansion, according to Jeff Pearlmans book Showtime, made the masked orgy in Eyes Wide Shut look positively tame by comparison:

He would have the finest girls in L.A. there. The absolute finest, said Frank Brickowski, an ex-Lakers teammate. And at midnight you had to get busy with somebody or you had to get the fuck out. So if you were a guy, at midnight youd get as close as you could to the hottest possible woman. Magic went around in this freaky voyeuristic way. Hed check on you. Hed go throughout the house, the pool. Hed order people to start doing things. All you had to be was near a chick. There were guys who would yell, Magic, shes not getting busy! Shes not! Hed run over and shed get busy. Celebrity is seductive in L.A.

It was a hedonistic time, and the Lakers were, in the words of guard Byron Scott, bigger than rock stars. So in 1985, when team general manager Jerry West used the Lakers first-round pick to draft forward A.C. Green, he knew there was going to be a culture clash. Or perhaps West, in his infinite wisdom, felt Green might calm the magic johnson down. You see, Green was a born-again Christianand a virgin. He was so chaste that, during his sophomore year at Oregon State University, he organized a school-wide protest after spotting a copy of Playboy being sold at the student bookstore despite the fact that, inside its pages, theyd named him one of their All-Americans. When news of the protest (and Greens celibacy) went wide, opposing crowds began taunting him during free throws with cutouts of bikini-clad women.

Isaac Feders documentary short A.C. Green: Iron Virgin, premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival, provides a fun glimpse at Greens extraordinary on- and off-court accomplishments. Its executive-produced by the Anchorman team of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and narrated by Ferrell, a huge Lakers fan, who also conducted the films droll on-camera interviews.

Upon being drafted, the Jheri-curled Green, 21, was thrown to the wolves. And his randy teammates did whatever they could to tempt him. Wed say, A.C., come on, go out with us, and hed say, No, I wont go out with you guys but Ill pray for you guys, says a chuckling Michael Cooper, Greens teammate, in the film. We joked about how long it would last before he had sex, adds teammate James Worthy. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar remembers how Green would carry a Bible around with him at all times.

They started a pool during his 85-86 rookie season to see if hed cave and it got as high as $600. You dont get laid once in two months, the moneys yours, said Magic. But theres no fucking way… They even went as far as sending a gorgeous, scantily clad woman to his hotel room during a road trip, but Green remained steadfast. 

So, you get a knock on your hotel room door. You look through the peephole and you see a half-naked woman who wants to come in. What do you do? asks Ferrell in the film.

I would just start saying prayers super loud, Green replies.

Green was also a tenacious rebounder and starter on the teams 87 and 88 championship teams, averaging 11.1 points and 8.2 rebounds those years, with a field goal percentage over .500.

When he was on that basketball court, A.C. just totally changed into this monster. He was a punisher. He was one of those guys who would just knock you out, says Scott.

Im gonna hit, and Im gonna hit, and Im gonna hit, Green saysof his aggressive style of play. And I learned that from reading The Old Testament. I think Jesus would have been the kind of basketball player that would have been unstoppable. 

The native of Portland, Oregon, would pure in every respect. He didnt curse, uttering gee-whiz and doggone it, and was a teetotaler. In one scene during Iron Virgin, the Lakers enter the locker room, ecstatic after winning the 1987 NBA Championship. An assistant hands Magic a bottle of champagne, and he raises it over his head, screaming. A bottle is then handed to Green, who stealthily places it on the ground, his eyes darting about the room to see if anyone noticed.

Another funny sequence focuses on the safe-sex rap anthem It Aint Worth It, featuring the vocal stylings of Green, David Robinson, and Barry Sanders.

Dont try to stop us, when I drop this little lecture on safe sex / Nothing but a joke by the governments latex / Cause theres no safe sex except abstinence / Unless youre married then you better stay committed, raps Green.

Green was the most durable player in NBA historythe leagues Iron Man. He didnt miss a game from Nov. 19, 1986, all the way to his final game on April 18, 2001, for a total of 1,192 consecutive games played. And he accomplished it all as a virgin; his A.C. Green Youth Foundation promoted abstinence until marriage.

I am curious [about sex], Green told Sports Illustrated in 1997. But not curious enough to go to the violation point. I figure God created it, so it must be good. But he has created it to take place at a certain point of timewithin the confines of marriage. If Im going to live according to rules God laid out, then there are rules A through Z. There cant be situational ethics.

Green retired in 2001, and married his wife Veronique on April 20, 2002. And yes, they consummated it.

It is definitely worth waiting, Green told Good Morning America in 2002, just after celebrating his six-month wedding anniversary. When you marry the right person at the right time you have no regrets. For me, I have nothing but smiles on my face.