IRON MAN With a Golden Rule.

Ask Dallas Mavericks team captain and power forward A. C. Green when his streak began, and he may not remember, in spite of the NBA hoopla November 20, 1997, when he played in his record 907th consecutive game. November 19, 1986, was a long time ago; Johnny Carson still hosted The Tonight Show and Ronald Reagan was president.

Yet ask Green when he was saved and he's got a ready answer--August 2, 1981. In that memorable sermon titled "Do You Want to Go to Heaven or Hell?" the preacher minced no words and offered three altar calls before the teenage Green finally stepped forward at a small church in Hermiston, Oregon. "Since then the golden rule has come alive in my life." the athlete shares.

Green's golden rule conviction couldn't have been played out more literally than when he turned the other cheek during a struggle for the ball in the winter of 1996. That's when the New York Knicks J. R. Reid elbowed him in the face, cleanly knocking out two teeth in his lower jaw. Despite the assault, Green reached down, picked his teeth up off the floor, and walked to the locker room. No cursing. No blaming. No retaliation. Instead, Green underwent emergency root canals, donned a protective plastic mask, and flew to Salt Lake City--just in time to play the next game on the schedule against the Utah Jazz, if only for a minute.

What does he have to say about this treatment? "Well, there are hot-heads out there," Green begins. "I just have to seek the presence and character of God--the lost treasure--and ask Him to imprint that on me. God will put the bright lights on, and that's what happened."

With this type of fortitude and peace, no wonder papers across the country keep spilling ink about his work and moral ethics. Both as an athlete and as a Christian, he sticks to his game plan. Over and over he's proved his durability in the rough-and-tumble of NBA life--one notorious for its physical rigors and orchard of temptations. It's this consistency throughout his long career that intrigues the public and makes such a visible platform for his Christian values.

On the day he made history at Reunion Arena in Dallas as the NBA's official Iron Man, for instance, USA Today printed a fist of Green's do's and don'ts. Besides living a healthy lifestyle free of substances, the paper reported that Green doesn't "spend his money frivolously" or "speak unkindly or disrespectfully about anyone? He does, however, act as vice president of the Ministry of Champions for Christ, an organization for college and pro athletes. He also runs the A. C. Green Youth Foundation, a foundation he created eight years ago in Phoenix after he left the Los Angeles Lakers to play for the Suns. Though headquarters remain in Phoenix, the program serves his old LA. stomping ground and his hometown, Portland, Oregon, as well. Dallas, understandably, may be the foundation's next site.

Green's vision involves offering no-cost opportunities to underprivileged children between ages 8 and 15 in skill development--basketball skills, job-related skins, and decision-making skills. In this last category he deviates most dramatically from his professional pack because, at age 34, he remains single and celibate.

Naturally Green's curious about sex, but staunchly believes abstinence is the only safe sex and marriage is the only appropriate framework for sex. In a recent Green-produced sex-education video titled "It Ain't Worth It," he gives a 30-minute explanation of why not. The video ends with Green and two others--David Robinson of the San Antonio Spurs and Darrell Green of the Washington Redskins--rapping. "We stepped out on a limb and were fools for Christ," Green chuckles. By taking that step, however, they hope to attract attention and encourage responsibility, the gist of the foundation's mission.

Green stresses that responsibility (or the lack thereof) always has consequences. Enjoying his work and earning a great paycheck, for instance, represent the favorable consequences of playing in the NBA. Yet power forwards like Green duke it out more than anyone else on a team. He knows he's got hazard duty, and he's accepted consequences that have ranged from serious dental damage and a broken thumb to sprains and deep muscle bruises. He uses his background to show that even high-profile work has downsides.

Besides teaching basketball skills and an abstinence curriculum, the foundation's work involves exposing kids to what Green calls "normal" jobs, those jobs outside the more glamorous ones in sports or entertainment. Sometimes he joins the kids when they visit corporations and other job sites to explore various career paths. "It's in my heart, working with children," says Green. "God has just placed a burning desire within me to help develop better opportunities for them."

Even with education and a good support system, he remembers how challenging growing up can be. Unlike the lives of some of the children he reaches through the foundation, however, his life was humming along at a good clip when he turned another corner for the better. As a 17-year-old dynamo--Oregon's Player of the Year and an All-American whose high school basketball team won that year's state championship--he already had college scholarships and keys to a newly purchased set of wheels in hand.

"I didn't come to Jesus from the bottom of the barrel," Green admits. "But then I was still a man pleaser, a religious kid who felt spiritually confused." That predicament crosses socioeconomic boundaries and can affect anyone.

Years later he credits his consistency on and off the court to that leap of faith in high school and to eating well. "Everyone feeds their physical man," Green points out. "I just make a point to feed my spiritual man." That nourishment clearly sustains him, though many times Green still finds himself praying "Dear Lord ..." for strength five minutes before the tip-off.

"During the first 17 years of my life I trusted in my abilities. Now I don't want to trust in that. I put myself in position to always depend on God. Whether you're winning or losing, you've got to just hold on to that rope of faith," he reminds. And holding on is something he's good at.

Para Mellskog is a freelance writer living in Saint Paul, Minnesota.