Week 4 Player Spotlight: Brad Coleman, DL | Column Written By St. John Fisher Athletics Communications Student Assistant Nic Bakker
Asked how he would define courage, Brad Coleman smirked, admired the question and gave it some thought. After a few seconds, the St. John Fisher senior defensive lineman had an answer.
The first thing that came to mind? The Wizard of Oz and the Lion.
Coleman is a lion. In the opening three years of this decade, the lion roamed the hallways of Webster Thomas High School. Bigger and stronger than everyone else, he brought a fierce intensity under the lights.
In the wild, the lion does not experience true vulnerability, much like Coleman on the field. His job requires him to collide with the big boys several times per game.
“If you were to ask the Brad Coleman four years ago, maybe he would have just told you courage means not being scared or something simple like that,” he said.
I went to high school with Coleman. As I told him, he appeared from the outside as the typical high school football player you would see in those Disney Channel movies 15 years ago. Popular socially and solely devoted to his sport. Without ever getting to know him, I didn’t know any better than to stick with my assumptions.
I was wrong.
Fast-forward four years, and Coleman is now the president of the Teddi Committee, the prominent St. John Fisher student-run organization tasked with organizing the annual Teddi Dance for Love.
Now the senior defensive lineman, preparing for his fourth Courage Bowl, has spent his entire Fisher career balancing two communities that not only have come to satisfy his definition of the college experience — but the true definition of courage as well.
Coleman did not arrive at Fisher expecting any of this. Football immediately gave him a built-in community. As a freshman, he said, joining the team meant being handed “100-something brothers” from the moment he stepped on campus.
But that familiarity was also part of what pushed him to look elsewhere.
“Everyone had similar goals, similar backgrounds,” Coleman said. “Everyone played football in high school. They all went through a recruiting process before coming here. So I kind of wanted to branch out and do something a little different.”
Then somebody told him about Teddi. More specifically, somebody told him that Fisher students spent 24 consecutive hours dancing. His initial reaction: “There’s no way.”
The absurdity of the idea was part of what attracted him.
“When am I gonna be able to do this again in my life?” Coleman remembered thinking. “Let me just jump on this, see what it’s about.” He quickly discovered that the dance itself was only part of it. He learned how much money the organization raised, how many students were involved and, most importantly, who the work benefited.
What began as an attempt to try something different became one of the defining parts of his Fisher experience. Looking back now, Coleman said his younger self probably would not recognize the path.
“If you go back and tell high school Brad, ‘Hey, you’ll be leading a club that raises money from a 24-hour dance marathon,’ I would’ve called you crazy,” he said. He described himself then as someone living more inside his own shell.
“I just really wanted to branch out,” Coleman said. “That’s something I’ve always tried to do as I’ve gotten older.”
Branching out is a concept that seems to be defined as seeking a new version of yourself. Coleman sees it differently.
The Wizard of Oz suggests that the Lion’s courage was never something he lacked. He just hadn’t recognized it.
In the empty room we were sitting in, we found that his arc at Fisher was analogous to this. Coleman’s journey at Fisher is one of self-recognition.
When asked about his role on the team, Coleman said, “I would say, I’m someone who needs to always bring energy.”
“I have a passion and a love for this team that, if I show up to a practice or a lift or a meeting and I don’t bring some kind of energy or charisma or something like that, I feel like I’m failing the team,” he said.
Playing time has increased during his career, but Coleman does not measure his preparation by whether his name appears at the top of the depth chart.
“Whether I’m starting or not, I’m gonna prepare like a starter,” he said. When his opportunity comes, his objective is equally straightforward. “I’m gonna do whatever it takes when I’m on the field to die empty for my teammates,” Coleman said. “Give it all I got.”
Wednesday nights have become a release from football, school and the responsibilities that come with leading a major student organization.
“Teddi is really a time where I can be a kid,” Coleman said.
For an hour or more, that means dancing, singing and allowing some of the pressure of everything else to disappear.
“I really take that hour, hour and a half on my Wednesday night to just dance around, sing, have fun,” Coleman said, “and do it with purpose because it’s for a good cause.”
That lesson has extended beyond the meetings themselves. Coleman explained how managing stress has not always come naturally. Trying to handle football, academics and Teddi simultaneously forced him to reconsider how seriously he carried each responsibility.
“What I learned about myself is not to take life as seriously as I have been,” Coleman said. “You’re only given a certain number of days. You can’t live your life under a ton of stress.”
The football player and the Teddi president might initially seem like two different versions of Coleman. He does not see it that way anymore.
“Relationships, school, winning a football game, you’re always gonna have to sacrifice something,” Coleman said. That idea carries over to Teddi, only in a different form. “In terms of Teddi, I’m sacrificing my ego,” Coleman said.
There is no image to maintain when he walks into a meeting. No need to be the imposing defensive lineman.
“I’m gonna be myself,” Coleman said. “I’m gonna be the Brad Coleman that dances around, laughs, and tries to have as best of a time as possible.”
Leadership still requires its own kind of strain. Meetings end, but emails have to be sent. Events have to be organized. Responsibilities remain. To Coleman, however, the underlying principle is the same. “I think it comes down to just straining and putting your ego aside to do something bigger than yourself,” Coleman said.
As I did in last week’s interview with quarterback Ryan Whitney, I asked Coleman how he wants to be remembered at Fisher. All it took was one word:
Passion.
“There are so many things about Fisher that I’m passionate about,” Coleman said. “Fisher’s my family. This football team, I’m incredibly passionate about. So proud of them.”
Coleman’s class has experienced both ends of the college football spectrum. He referenced a coaching change and the low moments his teammates endured together, along with the highs that followed.
“If people Google me or see what I’ve done here at Fisher, I just want them to say, ‘Oh, he was passionate about Fisher. He was passionate about the things that he was involved in,’” Coleman said.
He then tied these ideas together, centered around Camp Good Days, a nonprofit organization that provides camping programs for those whose lives have been touched by cancer.
“Those kids, they all have courage,” Coleman said. “They’re all so strong. Every time I go down there to camp, they always have a smile on their face. They’re always living their life to the best of their ability.”
Coleman knows a full football game is difficult. He knows what it feels like to line up across from a tough opponent and face something physically imposing. But those challenges have also given him perspective. When he thinks about courage now, he thinks about children facing circumstances far beyond the outcome of a football game.
“Every time I think of courage, I think of all the things that those kids have been through,” Coleman said. “Scary moments in their life where they might have lost a relative, or they’re scared of losing their own life.”
And yet they keep going.
“They’re strong,” Coleman said. “They continue to stay strong, even when the times, they’re not supposed to be strong.”
Saturday, Coleman will put on No. 52 and play in one more Courage Bowl. After four years, he understands the name of the game differently than when he arrived.
