As a baby born premature weighing just 3 pounds, Tevin Coleman stayed in the hospital for the first seven weeks of his life.
"Doctors said I had a 20 percent chance to live,” the Falcons running back from Oak Forest recalled Thursday, shaking his head in amazement.
Coleman grew up to be an All-America running back at Indiana where he once passed out during a tug-of-war competition with his Hoosier teammates. The sickle cell trait Coleman carried that makes him more sensitive to high heat and altitude — afflicting one in 15 African-American men — had sapped the strength of the athlete sturdy enough to be nicknamed "Rock.”
As a result of his health history, every time Coleman takes a handoff Sunday in Super Bowl LI he also will be carrying a message that means as much to him as an NFC Championship.
"I definitely want to help kids who are preemie or going through medical problems in their life realize that you still can do anything you want because I did,” said Coleman, a 6-foot-1, 210-pound speedster who gained 520 yards on 118 carries as a complement to Devonta Freeman. "Really, it’s amazing I’m at the Super Bowl.”
Especially considering Coleman’s boyhood dream involved playing baseball. But in Posen, where his family lived, his father, Wister, had trouble finding information about Little League signups for 7-year-old Tevin. But across the street from the Colemans’ house was a sign advertising local youth football tryouts.
"So my dad said, ‘Try this and if you don’t like it, we’ll try baseball,’ ” Coleman said.
On the first day of football practice, coaches put Coleman on the line because he was late. He made them see what an awful idea that was after the team lined up for sprints.
"I started taking off, beating everybody,” Coleman said. "The next day, I was a running back.”
Nobody enjoyed the position switch more than Oak Forest coach Brian McDonough, who remembered Coleman as a quiet kid who made the biggest ruckus running through defenders. McDonough asked Coleman to do everything — play wingback in the option attack, receiver, cornerback, kick returner — and, every time, the player answered with excellence.
Coleman became so versatile that his first major-college scholarship offer as a junior came from Syracuse — to play outside linebacker. Before long, Coleman’s explosiveness attracted offers from Top 20 programs such as Oklahoma, Nebraska and Michigan State but he chose Indiana for its proximity to home and opportunity to play quickly.
"I told everybody that recruited Tevin that he never caused any problems and was an awesome young man,” said McDonough, who still texts with Coleman and attended the Falcons game in Kansas City. "There was never a doubt about his talent and work ethic on field and the classroom.”
In preparing for Super Bowl 51 on Feb. 5, we’ve done our homework, ranking all 50 previous Super Bowls on how enjoyable they were to watch. Arriving at these conclusions was actually pretty simple. Ask yourself a few questions: Was there exciting drama? A legendary performance? A moment that we still can’t forget? Or were they just all hype and no substance?
Here’s our complete list.
— Jeremy Gottlieb, Washington Post
The two developed a special bond through McDonough’s battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Before Coleman’s junior year, McDonough underwent his second bone-marrow transplant and credited support from players such as Coleman with helping him through the ordeal.
"He would always check on me and made sure I was OK,” McDonough said.
Coleman smiled at the memory. He credited McDonough with preparing him academically for college — the coach arranged tutoring sessions before school — and considered helping his mentor through cancer the least he could have done.
"It was a crazy, emotional experience watching Coach (McDonough) like that … not being able to be out there with us all the time,” Coleman said. "I just wanted to be there to encourage him after all he did for me.”
Liberian-born parents Wister and Adlevia raised Coleman in Chicago to never forget the world was bigger than his own concerns, a mindset he maintains as a professional athlete. Social awareness spurred Coleman to take a two-week mission trip last summer to West Africa with stops in Ghana and Liberia, where Coleman’s great-great grandfather was the country’s president from 1896-1900. Traveling with his father, brother and local clergy, Coleman cleaned water wells in Ghana and visited schools and orphanages in Liberia.
"I’m going to do it every year now and get some players to help, it’s that important to me,” Coleman said. "We are so blessed with this talent, I feel like I should give back. That’s what I want to do.”
That’s the soft-spoken boy Rev. Jeffery Smith remembers singing in the children’s choir and being active in the youth group at Bethlehem Temple Church in Harvey. That’s the strong male role model Smith uses as an example when counseling so many African-American youths he encounters in the community.
"It’s great to have an individual you can point to who set a goal, worked hard, had passion and pursued it and it’s important they see someone with Tevin’s abilities and connections to a local community do this on a national stage,” Smith said.
The platform has changed. Coleman hasn’t.
"The only thing I’d say was different was I never saw him dance after a touchdown before like he does now,” McDonough said. "I was impressed. He’d run 80 yards before and show no emotion after. Now, at least he’s showing emotion, having fun and dancing.”
For someone who overcame Coleman’s odds, there is much to celebrate.
dhaugh@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @DavidHaugh
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
