Don Coleman: Football Trailblazer and Distinguished Educator
2/10/2007 12:00:00 AM | Football
Feb. 10, 2007
February is Black History Month, and nowhere in major-college athletics is that history richer than at Michigan State University. From Gideon Smith, the first African-American football player at Michigan Agricultural College in 1913, to Steve Smith, an All-American basketball player whose contributions have a major impact today, it would take many months to tell the full story. In a series of profiles, longtime Michigan State beat writer and columnist Jack Ebling will highlight some of the greatest of the great. The first is football trailblazer and distinguished educator Don Coleman.
DON COLEMAN
He was almost too good with the trumpet. But Don Edwin Coleman never blew his own horn. As great as he was on and off the field, No. 78 didn't have to do that.
Sixty years ago this spring, when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, Coleman was primarily a standout swimmer and a trumpeter at Flint Central High School.
His mother had lost two sons at young ages and didn't want Coleman to play prep football. Finally, she gave the OK, but his junior season ended because of conflicts with an after-school job as a busboy at the Durant Hotel.
When he went out for the team again as a senior, Coleman's adjustment was mercurial. He was an immediate state champion and an All-Michigan selection at tackle. And with help from legendary broadcaster Bob Reynolds, Coleman became a must-get recruit for then Michigan State College assistant Duffy Daugherty.
By May 1952, as he prepared for graduation from MSC, Coleman had become arguably the greatest player in school history - pound-for-pound the best lineman in the country. His memberships in the College Football and Michigan Sports Halls of Fame are just two of his honors.
But as an Army second lieutenant in Korea, a teacher and coach at Flint Central, a community schools director, a prison rehab counselor and an elementary school principal, Coleman was always an inspiration. And in 10 different assignments at MSU, ranging from assistant football coach to assistant dean of the graduate school to professor emeritus, Coleman was a whole man, not just an ex-athlete.
Before he laced up the shoulder pads, Coleman's goal was to finish high school and work in a Buick or Chevrolet plant. Once he planted himself in East Lansing, he had two homes and one objective - to help those who played with him and learned from him become winners at the highest level.
Coleman's No. 78 was the first Spartan jersey ever retired. The 175-pound terror was the first player named to Notre Dame's All-Opponent Team three straight years. He made every special teams tackle in a breakthrough win over Michigan. And when he opened holes for Sonny Grandelius and Don McAuliffe during a school-record, 28-game winning streak, he also opened doors for black student-athletes.
"Whenever there's a positive association with something, there's growth," Coleman said of racial progress than accelerated because of his efforts. "I knew when to speak, when to back up and how to avoid trouble. There's a time for everything. And I was conditioned to take what was given."
Like Jackie Robinson, Coleman received verbal abuse from every opponent and some physical shots to go with it. But Daugherty, his beloved line coach, was as color blind as anyone could be. And head coach Biggie Munn, a motivator for the ages, only wanted to see green helmets in opponents' end zones.
"The problems we had were a sign of the times," Coleman said. "I played against some name-callers who hollered, `You black so-and-so!' But Biggie always believed you kept your mouth shut and did your talking with your play. And I remember Bear Bryant saying in 1951, `You could play for me any time.'"
The Outland Trophy runner-up in 1951 opened enough holes to be recognized by the National Football Foundation and become a charter member of the MSU Athletics Hall of Fame. "Dr. Coleman" also opened enough doors and eyes with a tireless work ethic to earn three academic degrees, an NCAA Silver Anniversary Top Ten award and countless citations for efforts after football, including his work for Korean orphanages and Michigan hospitals.
But as a professor in MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine and a board member for Ingham Medical Center, Coleman should have known better than to ignore the pain that left him clutching his chest in November 1992.
"I took some Tums and thought it was gas," he said 14 years later. "When I finally went to the hospital, the doctors found a triple blockage. One artery was 90 -percent closed. Two others were 75-percent gone, so the doctors advised that I have open-heart surgery. I wound up having a quadruple bypass. I'd never even been a patient before."
The worst news for Coleman was that he had to give up his hobby of riding roller coasters all over the country. So he and his wife of 50 years, Geraldine, turned to cruise ships and are at 20 voyages-and-counting at age 78.
"I haven't regretted anything I've done, including saying no to the Green Bay Packers," Coleman said Saturday afternoon. "Giving up football gave me a chance to get started working with communities. I hope I've been a Jackie Robinson on a smaller scale. I always wanted to set an example and do the right thing. And nothing feels better than when someone says, `I always wanted to be a Don Coleman.'"
