[NU Sports] jan 8 nbcsports.com story

[Weinbaum, Willie]

Outstanding & just the latest example of why the writer, our fellow
Wildcat, is such a respected journalist.  What a compelling story!

-----Original Message-----
From: nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com [mailto:nwu-sports-bounces at tssi.com]
On Behalf Of Abrahamson, Alan (NBC Universal)
Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 12:01 PM
To: NU Sports List
Subject: [NU Sports] jan 8 nbcsports.com story

I realize this is slightly off-topic -- as it involves Ohio State, not
Northwestern -- but nonetheless thought it might, on the eve of the BCS
game, be of interest to enough of you to pass it on.
 You can not imagine, by the way, how many scarlet-and-gray boosters are
here in Arizona. 
 Purple to Pasadena -- Alan
 
--
 

A study in courage

By Alan Abrahamson
<BLOCKED::http://www.nbcsports.com/columnists/394164/detail.html>
NBCSports.com
Posted: Jan.8, 2007, 10:10 am EST 
 
GLENDALE, Ariz. -- In April, during spring football practice at Ohio
State, a freshman defensive back, Kurt Coleman, made a tackle on a
third-year receiver named Tyson Gentry. 

The play was routine. The tackle was ordinary. But Gentry did not get
up. He is now partially paralyzed. 

Monday night, when Ohio State takes the field against Florida in the BCS
title game, Tyson Gentry will be on the sidelines, in a motorized
wheelchair, wearing his scarlet-and-gray jersey, No. 24. Kurt Coleman,
in pads and cleats, wearing No. 4, will play for Ohio State, on special
teams, maybe even in the defensive backfield. 

The two have become good friends. 

There is no cheering in the press box. But please forgive me if I pay
special attention to Tyson Gentry and Kurt Coleman. Gentry is a study in
courage. Coleman, too -- a remarkable young man who has been forced,
through circumstance, to ask himself many of life's hard questions at a
young age and who, by all accounts, has emerged a good football player
and better person. 

 Kurt Coleman (4) and Nick Patterson
(23)<BLOCKED::http://www.nbcsports.com/2007/0108/803418_300X225.jpg>
Ronald Martinez/Getty ImagesKurt Coleman (4) and his teammates had a lot
to celebrate this year, but Coleman has also faced many difficult
moments.
 
I know this because Kurt Coleman and I are graduates of the same high
school, Northmont High School in Clayton, Ohio, northwest of Dayton. 

And, back home, the Northmont community -- which includes small towns
such as Clayton and Englewood -- could not be more proud of the
uncommonly mature young man that Kurt Coleman has become, of the way he
has shouldered his responsibilities and intends to meet his life's
ambitions. 

"It has been years since someone from Northmont has made it," said Sam
Pfeffer, who teaches shop at the high school and is married to one of my
classmates, Lynn. "This is the big time. You just can't believe the
number of scarlet-and-gray No. 4 jerseys around this area." 

"It's neat to be able to say you coached a kid playing for the national
championship," said Collin Abels, who teaches American history and
government at Northmont and doubles as the football team's defensive
coordinator. "It's neater to say you had an impact on a kid's life and
you've been able to see him grow and mature and develop into an
excellent human being." 

Kurt Coleman wants to become a special education teacher. At Northmont,
he served as a teacher's aide in the special ed class and found it so
rewarding he intends to pursue studies at Ohio State so that, after
graduation -- and, perhaps, a shot at the NFL -- he can teach the
developmentally disabled. 

Kurt Coleman's father, Ron, is battling cancer -- breast cancer. Male
breast cancer accounts for about one percent of all breast cancers in
the United States. Ron Coleman underwent extensive surgery in early
December and on Wednesday, in Dayton, is due to begin a three-month
regimen of chemotherapy. In the meantime, he is here for the game. 

All this is on Kurt Coleman's plate, along with the pressures of playing
big-time football -- and, as well, the emotional fallout from a play
that left someone else in a wheelchair. And he is but 18 years old,
still just in his first year of college. 

"I just can't wait for him to get out of the chair," Kurt Coleman said
Sunday night of Tyson Gentry. Here it was, the night before the national
title game, and Kurt Coleman said of his pal, "I think he can do it. He
has the willpower." 

Way back in junior high school, it was clear that Kurt Coleman had
extraordinary athletic ability. 

"I saw him as an eighth-grader and I knew he could be a special kind of
player," Lance Schneider, who has been coach of the Northmont football
team since 1999, said. 

Two years ago, when Kurt Coleman was a junior, he had a breakout year --
10 interceptions on defense, 16 pass receptions for 315 yards and seven
touchdowns on offense. 

"He was just always such a gentleman and a team player," said Gale
Mabry, the superintendent of the Northmont schools. "Sometimes, someone
who is very talented can come off with an attitude of 'I am special and
you are not.' I never saw that. I always saw him as a team player caring
about everyone." 

Others on the football team had served as volunteers in Diana Espy's
special education class. Kurt, it turned out, was a natural, and during
his junior and senior years he was a regular in her class. 

"He's a well-rounded individual, and he's extremely sensitive," she
said. "He treats my students with the utmost respect. He treats them
like they are cooler than cool." 

He said, "I love working with them. I found out I can learn just as much
from them as them me. That's the most rewarding part." 

In his senior year, Kurt was again named first-team all-Ohio. He earned
a scholarship to Ohio State and graduated from Northmont early so that
he could take part in spring practice in Columbus. 

Tyson Gentry went to high school in Sandusky, in northern Ohio, on Lake
Erie between Toledo and Cleveland. At Ohio State, he was a walk-on, a
punter who played wide receiver in high school. 

April 14, during spring ball, Tyson ran a pass route; Kurt brought him
down; Tyson landed awkwardly, on his head. He had broken a vertebra in
his neck; his spinal cord was damaged. 

Eight days after the accident, Kurt went to the hospital to visit Tyson.


"Kurt just manned up and went to see Tyson early," Ron Coleman said.
"These are things he did on his own. Not that he was forced to. It
wasn't required. That makes it even better." 

"I'm sure it was nerve-wracking for him," Tyson said. 

It was, Kurt Coleman said. 

But, Tyson said, there are no hard feelings. There never were. 

"Not at all," he said. "I could understand that if it were a cheap shot
or something, and obviously there have been situations in football in
the past where there was ill will between two people. But this was just
a typical thing that led to just a freak accident. There are no hard
feelings at all." 

Tyson has undergone two surgeries. He lost 40 pounds, then regained some
of the lost weight. After months of therapy, he can feed himself. He can
attend classes. He can't move his legs but said, "I've got feeling all
over my body; it's just not normal feeling." He is 21 years old. 

"When it first happened," Kurt said, "I wanted to break down. 

"I had hurt people in high school. It's not good to send someone to the
hospital -- it makes you think, do you want to play the game? That's not
your goal. The goal is not to injure someone." 

Kurt Coleman remains close to Abels, the Northmont defensive
coordinator, and Abels recalled, "I said to him, "Kurt, it's one of the
very unfortunate things about the game of football that something
serious like that can happen. You didn't do it on purpose, you didn't do
anything wrong, you were just playing the game hard. You've got to
continue to do that. 

"I said, 'Kurt, the reason you're at Ohio State is that you're not
afraid of contact, of making plays. You play aggressively. If you let
the situation keep you from doing that it's keeping you from doing the
best you can be.'" 

Many such sessions later, Kurt now says, "The game of football is the
game of football. Things happen. That's what helped me regain my
confidence." 

During his freshman season, Kurt played in all but one game, mostly on
special teams. In the Bowling Green game, he blocked a 50-yard field
goal try. 

Meanwhile, just a couple weeks after Tyson was hurt, Ron Coleman
underwent a surgical procedure to try to stabilize an irregular
heartbeat. For the following five days, he couldn't move his leg. 

The son wondered if his father might also be paralyzed. 

"When he had a nicked nerve and couldn't walk for five days, to see him
go through that -- to see him fighting through it without hesitation
shows his character," Kurt Coleman said. 

Ron Coleman regained movement in his leg. Then, in November, he was
diagnosed with breast cancer. On Dec. 1, doctors performed a radical
mastectomy, removing the breast tissue as well as a number of lymph
nodes. 

Ron Coleman, who is 55, is also a teacher -- as well as the basketball
coach -- at another Dayton-area school, Stebbins High. 

"I feel fine," the father said. "I'm always positive. I don't have bad
days, only bad moments. My thing is, and my oncologist has said, we're
just going to throw the kitchen sink at it and make sure I have
longevity." 

He also said, "This thing with cancer -- I feel blessed to be the one to
have it instead of my wife. Now I can help people in another way. I have
been doing it with coaching. Now I can do it with male breast cancer --
because it's not a death sentence. They talk about cancer as 'The Big
C.' But it doesn't have to be a death sentence. I don't look at it that
way." 

The son said, "He is definitely a great guy. He has more willpower than
I do. He has gone through a lot this year; to see him out here makes me
want to work that much harder." 

Back home in Dayton on Monday, Diana Espy, the Northmont special
education teacher, who cheerfully admits she knows almost nothing about
football, will put on her brand-new scarlet-and-gray No. 4 jersey -- a
Christmas gift from her husband, Chris. She's going to wear it to
school, she said. 

"I'm proud," she said of Kurt Coleman. "I'm proud to say he has worked
in my program."
 
 
_______________________________________________
nwu-sports site list
nwu-sports at tssi.com
http://romaine.tssi.com/mailman/listinfo/nwu-sports