Counting Down Cal's Top-50 Transfer Athletes: No. 20 Ray Green

The transfer portal era in college athletics seems like it’s been with us forever. Likewise, most fans can recall less turbulent times when transfers happened, they simply didn’t look like a stampede to the 1849 California Gold Rush.

We thought it was time to rank the best transfers Cal teams have attracted, most of them in recent seasons but also including a few OGs from yesteryear.

We limited our ranking to transfers from four-year colleges.

Here is the next athlete in our countdown:

20. Ray Green

Sport: Rugby

Arrival year at Cal: 1992-1993

Previous schools: Towson State

Contributions at Cal:

—As a center at Cal, Green was an important part of the Bears teams that won national rugby championships all three of his seasons in Berkeley (1993, 1994, 1995). He was the captain of the Bears’ 1995 squad.

---Green was an All-America selection in 1992 and 1994.

---He was a key player for the 1993 Cal team that won its four postseason games by a combined score of 130-12.

---Ray Green was the 1995 Cal Male Athlete of the Year (shared with co-captains).

---Green missed the national title games in 1993 and 1994 because of a broken leg, but was an important part of the Bears’ 48-16 victory over Air Force in the 1995 title game. That contest was played at Cal’s Witter Rugby Field, the first season in which that newly created facility was the Bears’ home rugby field.

---Green earned the first of his 11 caps as a member of the USA national team while he was a senior at Cal. He earned that cap when USA Rugby faced Ireland in a test match. He was also a member of the USA National team 7s squad, recording four caps.

Standout performance: Green says his standout moment at Cal was leading the team onto Witter Rugby Field to win the national championship in his senior year, 1995. He had missed the 1993 and 1994 championship games because of broken leg, but was on hand to co-captain the 1995 team to win the first championship played at Witter, and the fifth championship in a row. His quote to the San Francisco Examiner following the 1995 championship game: "When I'm old and gray, I'll be saying I was part of the team that won 93 straight . . . This is absolutely the most perfect thing to top off my college career. There's no place I'd rather be right now than here.”

Impact on his team: A great team leader, Green epitomized what a rugby captain was supposed to be, finishing his Cal career with a national championship and a 93-game winning streak.

Previously on our list:

No. 21: Marta Suarez

No. 22: Hugo Gonzalez

No. 23: Julia Vander Hoeven

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