PITTSBURGH — When Zack Belk was being recruited to play college football 12 years ago, his younger brother wanted to come along on the visits.
The 6-foot-2, 305-pound Green got the call from Mike Tomlin at Belk’s house, in their hometown of Peoria, Illinois.
Klemm had been the Steelers’ assistant offensive line coach, but now he can have even more of a hand in shaping that group, and the first rookie added to it was Green.
But he already checks what might be the biggest box for the Steelers, and that’s a mentality — and a physicality — Klemm won’t have to teach.
Yes, he’s on the smaller side for an offensive lineman, but he showed his athleticism with a 4.88 40-yard dash — faster than any other interior lineman who ran at his pro day this year — and 9-foot-11-inch broad jump, by far the best of any 2021 center.
Growing up, he went to the local basketball camp sponsored by Peoria legend Shaun Livingston, the fourth overall NBA draft pick in 2004 who won three titles with the Golden State Warriors.
He’ll get mad I’m sharing this, but at one point when he was a little kid, he wanted to quit football and just focus on baseball,” Belk said.
He finished third in the state in wrestling as a senior heavyweight and played both ways to help Peoria High School win its first football state championship that same year.
He elected to head to Champaign and play for the hometown Fighting Illini but had a bit of a rude awakening.
Last summer, he spent most of three days working the phones to organize a rally for racial equality on the Illinois campus.
And when you’re Black and you grow up in a bad part of town that is suffering heavily from poverty, you grow up seeing those things,” Belk said of his brother, a sociology major.
On that day in late August, people were literally following Green, including Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman, then-football coach Lovie Smith, basketball coaches Brad Underwood and Orlando Antigua, plus plenty of student-athletes.
Klemm was careful not to compare Green to Pouncey — or Dermontti Dawson and Mike Webster, a couple other college guards who moved to the middle and turned into Hall of Famers — but when you’re a center for the Steelers, the bar is set sky-high.
His inner circle believes he’s up for the challenge, and the journey began Friday night with his siblings, friends, fraternity brothers and proud father, LaMont Carroll, by his side.
“He loves her to death, and she’s honestly the driving force of what’s going to hopefully keep him grounded and make sure he’s smart with his finances,” Belk said.