Veteran Jacksonville sports journalist Buford Green has died at the age of 84.
Green passed away March 9 at The Grove Health and Rehab, bringing to a close a journalism career that spanned more than five decades in West Central Illinois.
Born in 1941 in Milltown, Kentucky, Green’s family later relocated to Virginia, Illinois. Green’s legendary run in area sports began as a member of the 1955 Virginia Jr. High baseball team that won the state’s first ever baseball tournament. Green and his teammates were honored by the Virginia City Council in October 2025 for their Cinderella run through much larger schools on the way to the state title. The stories from the team are still talked about to this day, seven decades later.
Green would graduate from Illinois College in Jacksonville in 1964, where he continued his baseball career through college. Also in college, Green began working for the Jacksonville Journal-Courier. Shortly after graduation, he became the paper’s sports editor— a role he would hold for 20 years, the longest tenure of any sports editor in the paper’s history.
Green later served as managing editor of the Journal-Courier before leaving the paper in 1991. He went on to become editor of the Showcase newspaper in Jacksonville and later worked as a reporter for the State Journal-Register in Springfield. He also contributed writing to The Source newspaper in Jacksonville before retiring from writing in 2007.
Over the course of his 50-year career, Green wrote more than 20,000 bylined articles. As sports editor, he covered some of the biggest events in sports, including the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Indianapolis 500, and heavyweight championship fights featuring the legendary heavyweight boxer and Jacksonville native Ken Norton as well as other great local sports luminaries like Bill Merris, Joe Brooks, Charlie Bellatti and more.
Beyond journalism, Green was deeply involved in local sports. He helped found the Illinois College Sports Hall of Fame and the Jacksonville High School Sports Hall of Fame and served for many years as president of the Jacksonville Area Hall of Fame. In 2012, he was inducted into the Illinois College Sports Hall of Fame.
For generations of local listeners, Green was also a familiar voice on the Saturday morning sports talk program “Sportsline” on AM1180 WLDS, where he served as co-host for 56 years.
He is survived by his son Chris Green of Arlington, Virginia, daughter Brenda Cunningham of Springfield, Illinois, three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and his sister Wanda White of Clinton, Washington.
A memorial service for Green is scheduled for Monday at Williamson Funeral Home in Jacksonville. Memorials have been suggested to the Jacksonville High School Sports Hall of Fame or the Illinois College Sports Hall of Fame.